July 14, 2024
The strong
anti-corruption fight President Hichilema launched when he ascended to office
has ebbed off and lost traction. The institutions charged with fighting
corruption are simply massaging, bandaging and covering up corruption. Isn’t it
strange that ACC can make headline news for arresting and prosecuting a poor
clinical officer for signing off two employment contracts while the ACC has
done nothing about the more cases involving millions of dollars exposed in FIC
reports? Why should the poor be prosecuted aggressively while the rich and
powerful are let off the hook and given immunity (read “rewarded”). Just what
has gone wrong? Here are my three (3) areas of vulnerability, which the
President needs to urgently attend to if the fight has to be resuscitated, look
credible and gain traction.
1.State
Chambers are in the Forefront of Looting: State Chambers are in the
forefront of cutting corrupt deals and facilitating corruption. This has put
all law enforcement agencies in an awkward situation as state chambers ought to
be an ally in fighting corruption. No serious crusade against corruption can yield
fruits when the heart of the legal machinery for government is contaminated.
The level of corruption is sickening, to the extent that state chambers are the
ones looking for litigants to sue the government and pre-agree to settle or
enter consent orders involving huge sums of money. The scheme has been
perfected to the extent that some orders are now signed using judges outside
Lusaka to avoid public scrutiny and media attention in Lusaka. The president
needs to do two things: a) dismiss his senior legal advisors and b) either set
up a commission of inquiry or authorize a special audit into all the high value
payments authorized by state chambers in the last three years.
2.ACC is
captured:
It is a mistake to expect ACC to be an effective tool for fighting corruption
in its current form. It is a captured institution. The forces that are ripping
off the state resources through state chambers also have their stranglehold on
ACC. It is no wonder the media has been
reporting that the ACC management has simply cut off the board from decision
making at the ACC. If the media reports are true, the ACC is not accountable to
its board but to the same corrupt elements looting public resources. This suggests the capture is so complete and
corruption reigns with impunity.
To demonstrate
how bad the situation is, a few days ago, I wrote a one pager opinion in my
individual academic capacity indicating why I thought the fight against
corruption was crumbling. I never made any personal attack on anyone and
focused my attention on institutional weaknesses. The morning after the article
was published, the ACC Director General Tom Shamakamba called me through the
phone of his deputy threatening to sort me out for commenting on the
underperformance of the ACC in the fight against corruption. This shows the
impunity and arrogance that has come to characterize the ACC management. It is
not different in any way from the daily threats many of us faced under PF.
During the Bill 10 debate, I wrote a few articles criticizing the Bill and
appeared as an expert witness in the Constitutional Court during the Bill 10
case. PF officials reacted by threatening to burn me in my house at night. Why
should Tom be allowed to behave like the lawless PF carders and threaten me for
making independent and scholarly criticism of the underperformance of the ACC?
What kind of impunity is that? Is it not our duty as citizens to hold those who
hold public office accountable? Must we let elections degenerate into a game of
trading one set of thieves for another while we remain silent?
What should the
president do to revive ACC? He must get rid of the current management of the
ACC and bring on board people with a track record of fighting corruption and
standing on the side of good governance. The president must appoint someone
beyond reproach, and has a history of dedication to the cause and not someone
who simply wants to get a salary and accumulate travel allowances while
neglecting her/his core duties.
3.Corruption
Tainted Settlements: The UPND government went to town denouncing the
former DPP under President Lungu’s tenure when it discovered that she had
entered into settlements immunizing some of the individuals accused of serious
acts of corruption. This partly explains why the government instituted her
removal. Yet in less that three years, the ACC has entered in more scandalous
settlements with some of the people accused of the most heinous acts of
corruption. The media has been reporting a shocking trend where the ACC simply
asks suspects to return just a fraction of the loot and keep the rest while the
suspect is given immunity from prosecution. Using this mechanism, ACC is
basically allowing both PF and UPND aligned officials facing serious
accusations of corruption to buy off their freedom, using the same resources
looted from the public. As long as one is willing to give a cut, they are let
off. Are the people who think that ACC is now preoccupied with finding people
with big loot, immunize them and share the loot not justified? It is clear that
the provision allowing the grant of immunity is being abused. The president
should facilitate the amendment of the immunity clause to narrow its use and
infuse inbuilt safeguards against its abuse in order to protect public interest.
Beyond these
short-term measures, there is need for serious institutional reform of ACC, to
redesign its structures and professionalize its operations. In its current
state it cannot be relied on to effectively fight sophisticated high-level
corruption. Doesn’t that explain why the ACC has done very little in relation
to sophisticated transnational acts of corruption recently? There is need to
also focus on preventing corruption and fostering a culture of accountability
by enacting a robust asset disclosure law to replace the current scattered and
outdated pieces of legislation. To also get a national picture of the depth of
the problem, the President should consider setting up a commission of inquiry
to find out the depth of the problem. The mandate of the commission should be
broad and extend to both current and past corruption. This will give the
country an opportunity for stock taking and understanding of the depth of the
challenge.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. O’Brien Kaaba teaches constitutional law at the University of Zambia and is a senior research fellow at Saipar.