The fight against corruption is absent in campaigns 

By Revelation Editor

Millions of Zambians are right now tuned into the ongoing campaigns, with many taking their time to keep themselves abreast of the happenings via several foras including social media, in-person attendance to the campaign programmes and also through traditional media forums such as radio, television and newspapers.

Those tuning in are hearing many campaign promises and pronouncements being dished out by the players. For instance, President Hakainde Hichilema is promising to increase maize production to 10,000 million metric tonnes yearly, and Mundubile is promising to put cotton farmers into cooperatives, and that they would also receive farming inputs. Citizens First leader Harry Kalaba is promising industrialisation, Socialist Party leader Dr Fred M’membe is promising greater participation of Zambians in key industries.

The opposition is also promising to professionalise the operations of state institutions. Indeed, state institutions right need demand a relook into how they are operating. But we hope they are not saying so only on account that they are being directly affected by the operations of these state institutions, so that once they are voted into office they start perpetuating the same system they are denouncing now. We say so because politicians usually tend to seek to entrench themselves once they have state power, and seek to use the compromised systems to achieve that goal. They usually only see the need to change those systems before they get into power, or once they are out of power.

We have not heard President Hichilema speak to how he intends to change the operations of these institutions like the Electoral Commission of Zambia, Parliament, Registrar of Societies, Judiciary and so on and so forth, because clearly their operations leave a lot to be desired. We urge the President to take a genuine look into the operations of these institutions so that they can operate in a manner he promised they would. It will be good if he can do so for his own personal and public standing, and also for posterity’s sake. He must model them in such a manner that he will remain proud of them even after his time in office.

But there is one thing that is worrying us a lot in these ongoing campaigns. There is actually no firm commitment from the contestants on the fight against  corruption in this country. We all know that this is among the significant problems we have faced in this country from time immemorial, probably with the exception of Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s administration, and to a greater degree Levy Mwanawasa’s administration, and to some degree Michael Sata’s administration.

There is a clear absence on corruption particularly from the ruling UPND and the Tonse/Pamodzi alliance, despite the two having being the administrators of this country since 2011. Zambians want to hear clearly defined, well thought out plans in terms of how the UPND, PF, CF, SP and the other competitors will fight corruption in this country, which is largely perpetuated by influential politicians and technocrats. In this country, the word nchekeleko has now become accepted as everyday life, when it should not. Even to get simple public services has been made complicated in this country because the people who are supposed to dispense those services to the public must be given some form of bribes for them to act.

The fight against corruption in this country has mostly been narrowed to target especially ‘troublesome’ or ‘vocal’ politicians who served in previous governments, while playing a blind eye to the corruption involving serving government officials. It happened during the PF administration when a lot of former officials who served in the preceding MMD administration were arrested over alleged corruption, including the former president late Rupiah Banda. Under late Levy Mwanawasa, his predecessor Frederick Chiluba also faced arrests. We have also seen a lot of former leaders in the PF administration arrested for corruption under the UPND administration. The same will likely proceed if there is no change in the manner we go about fighting corruption in the country. The focus when it comes to fighting corruption must be to address the corruption culture which has become normalised in this country.