WEED OUT CORRUPTION, SAMPA CHALLENGED
NEW Lusaka mayor, Miles Sampa has a challenge to weed out corruption at the local authority which is entrenched in illegal land allocation, losing UNIP candidate in the Lusaka mayoral polls, Reverend Alfred Banda, has said.
Rev Banda observed that most local authorities across the country had tarnished their images because of mass corruption by their employees.
He pointed out that land scams had made most people, including potential investors lose confidence in the councils.
Rev Banda said in an interview that the wrong perception created by corrupt individuals was the reason investors were sceptical about entering into lucrative deals with local authorities.
He advised the new Lusaka mayor, to focus on weeding out corruption at Lusaka City Council if the local authority was to haYe a stable financial base.
Rev Banda disclosed that fighting corruption at the council would have been his number one on his to do list, had he been ushered into office.
“Corruption is one thing that must be eliminated at local authority level if councils are to become viable again. There is a terrible perception of councils, especially with regard to land. So, as mayor, my focus would haYe been to first of all fight corruption. We have to weed out corruption in councils,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rev Banda said that now that the election period was over, Mr Sampa was free to engage him on how best they could transform the city.
He said that losing candidates had different ideas on how they wanted to change the city, saying that Mr Sampa could tap from such ideas.
Rev Banda pointed out that the new mayor could take advantage of his 10-point plan as the fight against corruption at local authority level was well outlined.