[By Melvin Chisanga]
Show me one citizen who has been taken aback by the latest revelations at the Ministry of Health, and I will show you a hypothetical liar. At the rate this country has been regressing into what it has ended up into. We must be prepared to see anything and everything coming because that is the new normal under this regime.
Vantage Point has been criticised and vilified many times for criticising the irresponsibility with which the PF-led government has governed this country in every sense of the word since it took over power from the MMD almost a decade ago.
But because the criticism is not one motivated by anything else other than truth, objectivity and reason, the insults and threats aimed at silencing Vantage Point are nothing more than an exercise in futility because there is no fear in the truth.
Those who have been following the way the PF has gone about conducting national business will agree with me that for the longer part of the period they have been in power, kerfuffle has reigned supreme.
The latest inclusion to their long and relentlessly growing list of scandals is the procurement and eventual distribution of subpar drugs, condoms and other medical paraphernalia between the Ministry of Health and the little-known Honeybee Pharmacy.
But since this is Zambia, Vantage Point is aware of the fact that, just like other big sagas that the PF-led government has committed against the people it governs and gotten away with, the PF thinks it is just a matter of time before this one too goes the way of many, even bigger scandals: into the history books.
However, this may not be business as usual for the PF government as has always been the case with other scandals in the past for a number of reasons as Vantage Point will endeavour to elucidate.
Surely, even if we Zambians are known to be a forgetful people that pays very little, if not, attention at all, to issues that should be keeping us awake at night, the preponderance of jaw-dropping sagas committed by the PF is unprecedented by a government ever.
Though not the first of its kind, and just a tip of the ice burg of the total institutional rot under the PF government, perhaps the timing of this particular one puts it at odds with the rest of the atrocities that the PF government has subjected Zambians to.
With only a meagre seven months remaining before Zambia goes to the polls this year, it would be out of sheer spite and not that they will have forgotten, in the very highly unlikely event that the people of Zambia voted to retain the PF in power this year.
Another aspect of the Honeybee saga, and perhaps the one that brings the biggest sense of worry to every would be victim, is the issue of faulty condoms that were supplied and distributed countrywide. It is disturbing how in pursuit of riches, human beings can go to the extent of putting other people’s lives in danger in that manner.
It was unbelievable to hear the confessions of the responsible officers to the Public Accounts Committee, of their fore knowledge of the problem. This kind of heartlessness borders on terrorism, doesn’t it?
Furthermore, unlike with other scandals whose offenders cannot clearly be pointed at, the perpetrators of the Honeybee saga do not need any special investigation to identify, other than the good job that was done by the Public Accounts Committee, to which they confessed their guilty.
Right now, many are expecting heads to roll over this matter. Question is: which heads and who will roll them anyway? Definitely not the President. If the questionable way the President has handled previous issues is anything to go by, everyone can rest in my assurance that this too, is only one of those issues over which we should not expect much from our humble leader.
I say so because in a normally functioning society where people are serious about matters of national interest, all the people involved in this matter would have been remanded in prison awaiting the final verdict of their offence from the courts of law.
But because of the unbridled corruption that is endemic in the PF regime, some of us will not be surprised if this saga, like many others in the past, both recent and distant, registers no meaningful arrests at all.
In any case, how can there be arrests over matters similar to those over which the ministerial head was exonerated and acquitted not too long ago? Would that not be a direct indictment to the very institutions that could not see corruption even where it was literally palpable?
The one and only time we shall see heads roll seriously is when we all get involved and show these selfish leaders our displeasure about the whole catalogue of issues is through the ballot.
August 12 this year presents a once in every five years chance for us citizens to have our say about our national leadership. If only we shall vote wisely, all the things we have been complaining about will come to an end, ‘fikapwa’.
chisangamelvin@yahoo.com