Who will Zambians entrust to fight corruption?

By Daily Revelation Editor

Catholic Priest Father Andrew Mukosa is wondering who the people will entrust in order to deliver the country from corruption as the trend seems to be repeating itself from administration to administration.

“Who are we going to vote for, so that we know that when we vote for this man or woman, they can deliver? Because everytime we have this trend repeating itself from time in memorial, governments have been trying to curb corruption but they are certain individuals even in government itself that are being corrupt,” he said.

What Fr Mukosa is wondering about is the same question Zambians are grappling with, because they see no hope in terms of ending the corruption vice that seems to entrench itself with each passing administration. For many years, the fight against corruption has ranked highly in several election cycles, with successive opposition parties attacking the incumbent administration of presiding over a corrupt system. However, once the Zambian people have effected their part of the bargain by voting out corrupt governments, the new people elected into office simply seem to take up the button by becoming the high priests of corruption themselves, presiding over a corrupt society and doing little to fight the vice, except rendering lip service on the same.

The only corruption they seem committed to fight is the real or imaginary corruption which was committed by their predecessors. Even then, the fight is mainly focused on weakening their predecessors political standing in order to stop them from ever threatening their hold on power. If it’s the corruption to do within their own ranks, the focus is mainly on the ‘smaller fishes’, or those who fall out of favour, while ignoring the corruption involving the ‘bigger fishes’. It’s like something akin to the animal world.

There is actually no real effort applied in proactively arresting, or even attempting to systematically address the corruption that has now become endemic in the country, where on account of the same, crucial aid is being cut from the meagre resources that should go towards helping the country address infinite challenges.

We saw how for instance the Frederick Chiluba administration made a lot of noise about fighting corruption, but only ended up focusing on the “clean” Dr Kenneth Kaunda, while allowing corruption to worsen and become entrenched under their watch.

The only administration we can acclaim as having tried to at least address the vice was the Levy Mwanawasa administration. But the little effort they put in quickly went off the rails with the election of his successor Rupiah Banda. The trend continued, especially under the PF administration of Edgar Lungu. Mind you, this is the same PF that earlier been elected in 2011 on the platform of fighting corruption. Then came Hakainde Hichilema’s administration, which for many years mourned about what they described as the gross corruption under the PF, and how they hoped to be given the opportunity to be elected into government to address the vice once and for all. However, they are in power now. Has corruption finished? Far from it, it’s actually worsening, with donors now even going to the extent of cutting aid on the back of the UPND administration’s failure to fight the theft of drugs in the country.

Zambians are now left to wonder if they can even trust politicians to keep their word especially on corruption. Politicians are a very difficult people to trust actually.

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