Graphel Musamba replaces Lemmy Kajoba who exposed Christopher Mundia for stopping a corruption investigation he was mentioned in.
Opposition Socialist Party president, Dr. Fred M’membe, says there’s no corruption fight waged by President Hakainde Hichilema.
Lusaka, July 6 – Dr. M’membe, in his Facebook post, has stated that there’s no corruption Mr. Hichilema is truly fighting. That it’s all hypocrisy and about vengeance further stating that the new dawn government is more corrupt than the previous one.
“There’s stinking grand corruption in this government. There’s grand corruption in fertiliser, mining, oil and so on and so forth. It won’t be long before Zambians know the truth and they won’t like it,” reads in part his Facebook post.
He said in Matthew 7:3-5 we are told: “Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’ while the log is in your own eye?” Again, “time will tell, time alone will tell… you think you are in heaven when you are living in hell…”
He emphasized that while corruption must be fought, it must not be done by equally or even more corrupt people.
“This is the case of a thief chasing another thief. Actually, big thieves are more brutal to small thieves,” his statement further reads.
We totally agree with Dr. M’membe’s assertions. Would you trust a man who can’t discipline his daughters for embracing prostitution to be against the practice, justifying their behaviour with a statement that things are hard for them and besides they do that because of bad influence?
With this simple but silly example, one clearly gets to understand how much Mr. Hichilema hates corruption.
Not long ago, if you may recall, Hon. Mundubile raised an important question in Parliament about a scandalous $100m deal that he said was shrouded in secrecy. The Vice-President at the time said “It was actually cancelled”. But why was it cancelled if the contract was properly procured?
Also Read: Single sourced $70m MoH contract reeks of corruption.
“So if at all the reason for the cancellation was corruption or malpractice, why is the President quiet because he came to the House and told us that he will be naming and shaming vessels of corruption? And we saw him go out on our colleague for owning a house worth US $150,000. Bowman is a case. Our concern was why was the President quiet about a $100m contract that was questionable?” Hon. Mundubile wondered.
From a critical thinking point of view, cancelling the contract confirmed the Patriotic Front’s suspicions that from the beginning, it was a contract premised on a corruption deal and Mr. Hichilema is aware but like a father who justifies the prostitution of his daughters on flimsy grounds, he can justify any corrupt act by his Ministers. So he can’t claim to hate corruption. Only useful idiots will buy this lie.
By the way, Zambia is likely to lose money as the contractor will most likely sue for damages. He can walk away with as much as 30% of the contract sum for doing absolutely nothing because he has been inconvenienced.
And yet the President of the Banana Republic was all over the place condemning the Patriotic Front regime over Hon. Felix Mutati’s corruption scandal in which Zambia lost $52m as penalties for a contract that was never executed to supply 98 storage warehouses in 79 rural sites under the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to Savenda Management Services. Surprisingly, Mutati is still a Cabinet Minister. So much for a principled man who hates corruption.
Simon Wolfe, a London based international lawyer and an MD of Marlow Strategy, equally backtracked on his earlier songs of praise for the then newly sworn in Zambia’s Head of State promising a new era not only for Zambia but the entire continent of Africa.
“There are reports that members of the governing United Party for National Development (UPND) have been trying to leverage Hichilema’s presidency as an opportunity for embezzlement and fraud. The most recent example is the apparent award of a $50m fertiliser supply contract to Maurice Jangulo, husband of a UPND Minister, without a public procurement process,” he continued in an article that appeared in various international publications.
“Anti-corruption campaigns sometimes go sour. Governments tend to abuse the special powers extended to them, including legal procedures, to hunt down political enemies of the state, and often fall victim to the same temptations they are meant to be rooting out,” he explained.
There can be no better summary of Mr. Hichilema’s performance in his fight against corruption than the manner in which Simon Wolfe has put it.
It is clear that President Hichilema’s pledge to let the fight against corruption be professional and independent from his office, has been reneged and abandoned, hence our conclusion that it’s nothing but the opium of the masses.
Karl Marx famously called religion “the opium of the people,” in that religion was not only used by those in power to oppress the workers, but it also made the workers feel better about being oppressed when they couldn’t afford the real opium.
We can clearly draw the parallels with using the corruption fight as the illusion of truth by a government lacking a verifiable development agenda. People have been made to celebrate their immediate enemy, the state.
Look at how long it has taken for him to act on the sugilite scandal. Could it be that critical information had to be erased while they looked for who must be sacrificed?
This, indeed, is the case of a thief chasing another thief. Actually, big thieves are more brutal to small thieves!
You can now follow Woodpecker’s Digest on Twitter and Facebook!
©2022 Woodpecker’s Digest Inc.
Putting news into perspective
