ASSET DECLARATIONS: HICHILEMA MUST EMULATE LIBERIAN PRESIDENT
Liberian President Joseph Boakai has suspended all government officials that failed to disclose their assets within the required time frame. Mr Boakai, is quoted to have insisted that asset declaration was not only a legal requirement but also a crucial step in promoting transparency and restoring public trust in government institutions. The suspended officials will go for a month without pay until they submit their declarations.
This is what a leader that is resolute in fighting corruption does. They act decisively without justifications, deceits, manipulations or lies. Regrettably, for Zambia, this is not the case. The opposite is what we are confronted with. We have a leader in Mr Hakainde Hichilema, who is evidently presiding over an extremely corrupt regime – the most corrupt regime in the history of this country. No wonder, it is no longer a surprise that corruption scandals are being unearthed persistently. We can say this with confidence because there is no clean President who can preside over such a corrupt regime without being extremely corrupt himself.
It is very clear that Mr Hichilema is failing to deal with this corruption because it is his corruption – it is corruption coming from the works of his own hands. When it comes to fighting corruption, Mr Hichilema is paralyzed, he cannot act in the manner his Liberian counterpart has done because he has no moral right to condemn or even take decisive action against his lieutenants in government since everybody is literally involved in some illegal activity in one way or another.
We have consistently said that Mr Hichilema cannot decisively and genuinely fight corruption when there is vast corruption and looting surrounding him, and involving him. So, any meaningful fight against corruption in this country has to start with an investigation of Mr Hichilema’s own dealings in almost every sector of our economy such as mining, fuel, fertilizer, insurance, grain imports and exports, property and real estate, construction and manufacturing, among many others. There is pressing need to investigate Mr Hichilema. Let him be made to answer questions about his own business dealings. Without doing so, the fight against corruption becomes deceitful, a facade and meaningless. We maintain that any serious fight against corruption must start with an investigation of Mr Hichilema’s business interests.
This regime is tremendously corrupt. This is why even declaration of assets has become a huge problem because they don’t want citizens to know what they had before assuming office, and what they have now. Actually, Mr Hichilema’s failure to declare his assets, and disclose his business dealings and interests is a prima facie case for corruption. In reality, the various business interests of Mr Hichilema that he has failed to publicly disclose, and let the Zambian people be aware of, is the major source and incubator of all this corruption.
But then again, very soon the citizens will know the truth, everything they have been up to and hiding. It’s just a matter of time before all this turns into tears for all criminals. They can run but they can’t hide. All the pretense, lies and connivance with Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) to free or pay a blind eye to their corrupt lieutenants, is only delaying their end, which will still come anyway.
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party