PROSECUTING AND PERSECUTING PRESIDENT LUNGU’S FRIENDS

IT has become abundantly clear that opposition members with huge corruption cases will not be brought to book. Instead we will continue to see serving members of Government being brought down in the most humiliating manner possible.

It is very difficult to escape the impression that our law enforcement agencies have no interest whatsoever to investigate and prosecute those people involved in multibillion financial scams, including then illegal externalization of pension funds out of the country.

There are many other cases of very clear abuse of authority in the privatization of public entities which are now domiciled out of the country, with the resultant profits and proceeds being syphoned out of the country.

The whole country knows that the Livingstone Intercontinental deal was fraught with serious issues and yet not a single graft agency has taken any interest. They would rather chase sitting Ministers or indeed former senior Government officials for possessing property believed to have been proceeds of crime.

In terms of value and magnitude there is very little comparison between what these officers are being accused of acquiring corruptly compared to the vast resources that have been and will continue to be taken out of the country.

Property built in Zambia and owned by local Zambians will bring benefit internally but companies privatized for a pittance to foreigners which continue to bleed the country of foreign currency which ideally should have been part of the development process in the country.

I am not convinced that the Police, Anti-corruption Commission and indeed the Drug Enforcement Commission have exercised themselves fully in investigating the massive corruption and abuse of authority cases that your paper has exposed from time to time. It is incomprehensible that your newspaper could uncover graft and give an insight into how it was perpetrated, and yet civil servant paid to investigate and prosecute these cases are failing to do so.

The obvious suspicion id that most of our institutions are manned by “Sesheke” type of officers who will only pounce when the cases involve Patriotic Front supporters, they will not touch anything to do with the opposition. If anything, they will do everything possible to magnify wrong doings of those who support the Government.

Time has come for this situation to change. Corruption cannot always be about people in Government service. Those who promote it from the private sector and those who have benefited from it from previous engagements must also be brought to book.

People should not wait for the President to speak about these matters before they take action. They are paid to act without fear or favour.