Zambia on the Corruption Perception Index of 2023

Zambia on the Corruption Perception Index of 2023

Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba wrote;

I have just completed reading the 2023 report on corruption published by Transparency International.

I had hoped that the Zambian office would be bold enough and help include in the CPI report to reflect;

● That nearly all major public procurements have been done through direct bidding or single sourcing. This is a major source of concern by stakeholders as public funds are not being spent prudently, transparently and fairly.

● Amendemnts were recently done to the Public Procurement Act that seem to promote quick procurement at the expense of accountable and performance based procurement.

●That significant public business has been awarded to entities that belong or are friendly to the powers that be in the oil, fertiliser, maize and other sub-sectors.

● the face of public corruption; roadblocks, public service like passports office and others are back with a vengeance and had hoped that this will be reflected.

● large scale corruption as reported by all stakeholders including cooperating partners in the energy and agriculture sectors would be included. We had a case of a firm associated with the President awarded to manage the $40million environmental fund that has been under the Ministry of Mines since 2000.

● Failure by the President to disclose his assets, interests and liabilities.

● Instead the report has relied on old cases such as those involving past officials and were extensively reported in previous TI Reports as basis to show improvement.

This is rehashing old cases which previously drove the index to negative effect.

And the purported action now claims to show improvement of the CPI.

This is a clear case of using old cases to mask the current high occurrence of corruption.

● The report appears to exclude the rise in executive impunity and the sustained assault on democracy and the rule of law witnessed in 2022 and 2023.

Anyway….

The CPI annual report measures how corrupt each country’s public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and business people.

Seychelles (CPI score: 71) remains the top scorer in the region, followed by Cabo Verde (64) and Botswana (59).

Equatorial Guinea (17), South Sudan (13) and Somalia (11) perform the lowest with no sign of improvement.

Ninety per cent of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa scored under 50.

This year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows mixed results in Africa, with significant improvements in a few countries.

However, most African countries experienced stagnation, maintaining the region’s consistently poor performance, with an unaltered regional average score of 33 out of 100.

Ninety per cent of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa scored under 50.