TRANSPARENCY International Zambia (TIZ) wants the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to start Frederick Chiluba’s other corruption cases.

But TIZ president Reuben Lifuka yesterday wondered whether the ACC will be given room to independently investigate Chiluba who is seemingly under President Rupiah Banda's protection.

And Lifuka said it cannot be disputed that the Task Force has scored a number of successes and has recovered several assets.

Reacting to the disbanding of the Task Force on Corruption, Lifuka said TIZ had received the news with mixed feelings.

“Firstly, while we have consistently called for an appropriate legal mandate for the Task Force, we think that the decision to disband the Task Force has been hastily done and could have negative consequences for some of the corruption cases still before the courts of law or allegations still under investigations.

Secondly, we find the timing of the decision to be peculiar i.e. it comes immediately after the acquittal of former president Frederick Chiluba,” Lifuka said during a press briefing. “It can easily be construed that the purpose of this move is to completely kill off the outstanding investigations against Dr Chiluba.

We all know that some ministers and the Republican President Mr Rupiah Bwezani Banda have clearly come to the defence of Dr Chiluba and questions can be raised on whether the ACC will be given room to independently investigate someone who seemingly is under presidential protection.”

He said having worked closely with the ACC in the past years, TIZ understood their financial, human resource and technical constraints to handle high profile cases.

“While the ACC has been given additional responsibility, government has not indicated the support it will provide to the institution to improve their capacity,” Lifuka said. “In the absence of such support, we question the rationale for disbanding the Task Force.

It would have been appropriate in our view for government to have strengthened the capacity of the ACC before making this transition. It has been a well known fact that the tenure of the Task Force was limited and plans should have been put in place a long time back to ensure a smooth transition.”

He said it could not be disputed that the Task Force had scored a number of successes and recovered several assets.

“And therefore - whatever decision is made on the way forward - should be one that builds on this success. It is our considered opinion that government should have evaluated the work of the Task Force before disbanding it in this fashion. This would have allowed government to pick out lessons and appreciate the impact of the work of this entity. The move to simply make the Task Force a department of the ACC does not inspire confidence that government has thoroughly thought through this decision,” Lifuka said.

“For instance, it is common knowledge that the Task Force on Corruption was an administrative arrangement comprising officers from the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC), the Office of the President, Drug Enforcement Commission and Police Service and it is practically impossible to transfer officers from these other wings to a department at the ACC. The move which the government has taken has undoubtedly added to their efforts of killing the fight against corruption and departing from the late Dr Levy Mwanawasa's legacy of fighting corruption.”

On Vice-President George Kunda's accusations that they were using the fight against corruption for monetary gain, Lifuka said the Vice-President deliberately elected to abuse his parliamentary privilege to make damaging allegations against TIZ even without providing evidence to corroborate his allegations.

“We find it unfortunate that the good name of Parliament is being dragged in the mud - on account of such statements made under the cover of parliamentary privileges. The unsubstantiated allegations by the Vice-President who is also a leader of government business in the House, is a sad turn of events.

However, we do note that in the last few months, some of the members of the front bench in particular have used their positions of authority and privileges to attack institutions that they fully know are not in the House to defend themselves,” Lifuka said.

“We remember very well, the attack made by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services on the Catholic Church - his debate was allowed despite the fact that the Catholic Church had no platform to defend themselves.

To date, Honourable Shikapwasha has neglected to either substantiate his allegations or apologise for his statement. Other ministers including some members of parliament have attacked the private media especially the Post Newspapers for its critical position on a number of matters. Today, it is the Vice-President making allegations against TIZ - knowing fully well that he has no solid foundation for what he is saying.”
He said it was not the first time that Vice-President Kunda had used the House to attack TIZ.

“In 2006, following the launch of our book - Show Me The Money- Honourable Kunda, as Minister of Justice then - made disparaging remarks about TIZ. At the time, we ignored the remarks hoping that the Minister of Justice would soon realise the folly of attacking organisations who were not there to speak for themselves. However, this time around, it is clear that Honourable Kunda has made it habitual to attack TIZ - an organisation he seems to have a problem with,” Lifuka said.

“It is ironical and a question of doublespeak that on the same day when the Vice-President made these allegations against TIZ, he was counselling members of parliament against attacking the President without adequate facts and lowering the standards of debate in the House. Now, surely, is the Vice-President saying it is right for him to attack organisations without adequate facts?”

He said TIZ stands ready to provide Vice-President Kunda with all the necessary information about its operations and thus help him not to mislead the National Assembly.

“Transparency International Zambia was established in early 2000 and formally registered as a company limited by guarantee in June 2000. We started operations almost one year before the end of the term of office of former president Frederick Chiluba.

We therefore ask the question - how possible is it that donors facilitated the formation of TIZ alongside the Task Force on Corruption, which was only established in 2002? With a little bit of due diligence, His Honour would have gathered these basic facts about us,” he said.

He said TIZ wanted to remind Vice-President Kunda that the corruption they were fighting is one where some senior government leaders through their newly-registered construction companies, corruptly obtain government contracts.

“The corruption that TIZ has fought over the years and continues to fight - is one where food suppliers inflate invoices for payment in order to benefit some political parties, and the corruption that we fight is one where public procurement has been compromised and contracts are awarded to companies without following laid down tender procedures,” Lifuka said.

“The corruption we fight includes the abuse of public office where government officials including very senior government leaders fail to retire imprest despite existing laws. This is the corruption that we tackle every day - and the question for Honourable Kunda is what corruption is he fighting?”

He said while the Vice-President was making allegations against TIZ, the National Assembly invited them to appear before a parliamentary committee.

“While the Vice-President, seems not to see what we do as an organisation, he did invite us to serve on the National Governing Council of the African Peer Review Mechanism - we obliged to serve because we believe in this country and we are prepared to make a meaningful contribution to the peer review process.

Further, TIZ, in a spirit of constructive engagement serves on the Steering Committee of the Millennium Challenge Account under the Ministry of Finance and National Planning,” Lifuka said. “TIZ chairs the Multi-Stakeholder Group of the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative - a project under the Ministry of Works and Supply and finally, TIZ are represented on the Zambia Council for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative anchored by the Ministry of Mines and Mineral Development.

With this in mind, at what point, did the Vice-President realise that TIZ just makes statements and has a political agenda?”
He challenged Vice-President Kunda not to hide under privileges and repeat his allegations outside National Assembly.

“On our part, we will seek every legal option to clear our name and we have instructed our lawyers to pursue this issue to its logical conclusion. Further, we are seriously reconsidering our participation on the various bodies where we serve - because clearly, government has no respect for civil society in general and TIZ in particular,” said Lifuka.