ARREST THE CHEATS

GOVERNMENT is right to engage the Zambia Police to help track down youths who were ben eficiaries of the empowerment programme but cannot be traced. This is because most apparently used fake in formation when acquiring the youth empower ment funds. This disclosure by Youth and Sports Permanent Secretary, Kangwa Chileshe, makes sad reading on how the empowerment fund was abused. There cannot be any excuse for anyone who benefitted from the empowerment programme to start playing truant by not being available when required by government officials to find out the repayment modalities. Moreover, they should be aware that the funds they were given were not a gift but a loan and as such the government was right to want to discuss with them how they hoped to repay the money. As Mr Chileshe said, the government was forced to engage the police because some youths provided fake information and decided not to give the funds back. He said that efforts to get in touch with them proved futile as the addresses they gave did not correspond. “What I can tell you is that we have engaged the police and other institutions to help us track these individuals who had an ulterior motive which was to defraud the state,” he said. It is important that the government leaves no stone unturned in tracking down these youths for they have proved that they are crooks. After all, that is obtaining money under false pretence which is a criminal offence. For why should someone who is honest give false information just to acquire the empower ment unless the real motive is to steal the money. That is the point Mr Chileshe is stressing and we wholeheartedly agree with him. If any had problems in paying back the mon ey or servicing the loans, the least they could do is to get back to the Youth ministry and explain their problems. We do not think the officials at the ministry would be so heartless as to haul them to the po lice station for having defaulted. Mr Kangwa said he was aware that some youths had genuine reasons as they might be facing some challenges which could be as a re sult of Covid-19. He advised such youths to come forward and explain their case rather than shun and go into hiding because it may send a very wrong narrative. “We are not here to squeeze people but if there are those who have genuine reasons we are go ing to listen and negotiate so that we see how we can help each other, but for those who are doing it on purpose I can assure you that the law will catch up on them,” he said. Surely, no one wants to see the defaulters locked up but by not coming out of hiding and owning up, the message they are sending is that they are thieves – and as everyone knows, thieves deserve to be punished for taking some thing that does not belong to them.