SENIOR chief Bright Nalubamba has said countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have little to learn from Zambia under President Rupiah Banda’s leadership.

In an interview, chief Nalubamba said President Banda’s leadership was a bad example in the SADC region on issues of corruption, good governance and freedom of expression as enshrined in the Constitution and the United Nations Charter.

He said President Banda could not even listen to the people of Zambia on their demands on how to run the economy.

“The judiciary has been compromised, the head of state cannot even listen to the people of Zambia over the demands made on how the economy of the country can be run, the President cannot even consider sitting down and reason about the many challenges the country is faced with. The only thing he does is to fly out of the country for meetings whose lessons cannot be seen to be working for Zambia," Nalubamba said.

Chief Nalubamba said President Banda was destined for self-destruction because of his failure to read and see behind the line of friendship and good governance.

“I want to believe that when the late president Levy Mwanawasa instituted the Task Force on Corruption, he meant well. We all saw what the Task Force on Corruption did; it had the capacity to fight corruption and carried out independent investigations especially on people who corruptly benefited from the wealth of the nation. I personally do not see any sense why government should demolish the Task Force now or to cause to merge with the Anti-Corruption Commission. If anything in my conclusion government wants to conceal a number of corrupt cases that have gone into this nation they are protecting,” Nalubamba said.

He said the Task Force on Corruption was not there to protect wrong doers, the incumbent President and former presidents but to expose them against ills they committed during their reign and ensure justice before the courts of law.

Chief Nalubamba said President Banda had rendered the Task Force on Corruption toothless and powerless in the manner he conducted himself since he took over the government as a result of president Mwanawasa’s untimely demise.

He said it was his wish that in the event of a new government, the Task Force on Corruption should be reconstituted to investigate and prosecute corruption and plunder of national resources in order to complete what president Mwanawasa started.

“It seems things have gone wrong in the way the current head of state has defined the fight against corruption. There is little lesson SADC can learn from Zambia where corruption is concerned. My dear President has diluted the fight against corruption, the legacy Mwanawasa commanded respect for in the SADC region and the entire world,” he said.

Nalubamba said it was difficult for him to point to any successes scored by President Banda in the last one year he had been in power.

“Every time we see scandals after scandals, mistakes after the other and inconsistencies. I wonder what kind of Cabinet he has, I feel strongly that his Cabinet is a wrong one and reshuffles should be made to serve Zambia from total collapse,” he said.
Nalubamba also appealed to President Banda to consider cutting his foreign trips for some time in order to spend time on addressing problems Zambia faced.