Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Small thieves equally sabotaging progress; cage them!

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When announcing the increase of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), which is obviously one of the hallmarks of his leadership, from a paltry K1.4 million to the staggering K24.7 million, President Hakainde Hichilema famously declared, “we are taking money away from a small number of “big thieves” in Lusaka and disbursing it to provinces and constituencies countrywide for development. ”

Who are these small number of thieves in Lusaka, one may wonder.

These may have been Cabinet ministers or senior government officials such as Permanent Secretaries and Directors as well as senior party officials in the previous regime who had no qualms dipping their magnetic fingers into the ‘cookie jar’ and deprive our people of goods and services (development) for selfish reasons!

And today, most of these are overnight millionaires boasting of an array of asset portfolio – breathtaking mansions in posh neighbourhoods; highly mechanised farms; impressive fleets of state of the art vehicles and Bank accounts piling-up with enormous amounts of money, which they’d be forced to give to their side-chicks to stash in the garages for them at times!

And since most of them can not explain the source of their sudden wealth, they’re either rotting or destined to jail for lengthy prison sentences of course with their multiple properties forfeited to the state.

While we remain for ever indebted to our President for such a brilliant initiative, it’s however sad to note that there’s still equally a legion of small thieves lurking in almost all the public offices intent on sabotaging progress……

They are like termites slowly eating up a building. Day and night, they pinch drugs from dispensaries in hospitals to stock up their pharmacies in the townships; they include fake names of beneficiaries on social cash transfer lists thereby depriving deserving individuals; they wantonly defraud the state by inflating costs of CDF projects and scheme how to keep government grants into their pockets.

These may be ‘small thieves’ pilfering minute amounts here and there as compared to the big thieves in Lusaka; however, they’re large in numbers and their combined efforts could literally paralyse service delivery! Imagine the DEBs conniving with school head to ‘chew’ the grants? Imagine WDCs colluding with council workers to inflate the cost of projects? Imagine Doctors conniving with nurses to steal medicines from hospitals? Imagine the DACOs conniving with agriculture extension officers to divert fertiliser?

Would the nation be guaranteed effective service delivery?

Negative! And everyone is going to conclude this particular government is failing to deliver according to the expectations of our people.
Can we please come up with measures to protect the resources we are disbursing to the districts and see to it that they are being utilised for the intended purpose other than giving birth to new millionaires in town.

Prince Bill M Kaping’a
National Coordinator – HH Mpaka 2031 People’s Alliance

18 COMMENTS

  1. Loopholes are beginning to emerge from the so-called cash-for-work. There’s never a shortage of thieves in our venerated Christian nation!

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  2. Selected thieves, while others are stealing big time & sending their loot outside mother ZED. The previous so-called PF thugs stole & invested home while the so-called angels/saints UPND ship their loot in greater numbers outside the nation. UPND are toooo clever you know these saints.. we are not fools we see you. So who is the baddest of them all?

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  3. The previous so-called PF pompwes stole & invested home while the so-called angels/saints UPND ship their loot in greater numbers outside the nation.

  4. Bakabolala ba PF stole & invested home while abangeli ba UPND ship their loot in greater numbers outside the nation

  5. ……….

    We said from 2021………

    The rot, the moral decay , the stealing mentality , the handout syndrome of 10 years of PF rule……….

    Will take a sustained good 15 years , at least, to eradicate………

    Stealing in lungus era was so widespread that one would think it was part of the job description…………

    Worst was we had statements from PF leaders insinuating and encouraging stealing and corruption…………

    Notable one one’s were from lungu himself…”don’t eat everything in the field….”,

    lusambo…..” one steals to better his family..”

    and Davis mwila….” PF caders must share plots amogest themselves first…..”

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    • Like that is true and KK is alive? AMwale be serious please, its not the party that is the problem its the people in the party that masquarade are sincere humble people but they are just theives.
      Now that we know, Ba Local government where are the audit reports? Go to these elected officials and get reciepts to find out where and where they bought the assets they have, match it with the said income. Simple, if internal auditors do their work then you can catch these small thieves. Cage them. Even the big ones, when convicted. Deal with appeal expeditiously. Look at what happened in Kenya. VP tried to pull a Kambwili, Kaizer, Tayali. The institution dealt with him, impeached, whether wadwala or not. The law and nation should not be held at ransome.

  6. A nation of monkeys can not produce gorillas. With very few exceptions, most Zambians, whether in office or not, want to cut corners. That is who we have become as a people, and these leaders come from among us. Its not just a leadership disease. Its a citizenry disease. Not to say this exonerates leaders, no no no, but to solve this problem we have to look under every rock .

  7. AJackson people are rotten throughout Zambia. Thats why rotten party after rotten party keeps ruling Zambia. Theres only a few of us who have been spared because we live abroad. You will see very soon HH will hand the baton to another rotten party.

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  8. Next time do your research around CDF and get involved instead of criticizing from outside because everyone is qualified to participate in CDF monitoring and development. Both PF and UPND members of parliament received CDF

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  9. 1. Set up probity committees in every constituency.
    2. Hospital pharmacy store rooms must be digitally locked so that anyone who enters uses a unique ID and is recorded to have entered the store.
    3. Every patient must sign for the drugs that they receive from a hospital pahrmacy and that receipt must tally with a doctor’s prescription.
    4. Auditors must audit inflow of medicines and outflows with respect to prescriptions and signed receipts.

  10. Yes we have plenty of thieves unfortunately they are untouchable. I’m glad you are now admitting that the only difference is that PF was lead by Edgar Lungu and Hichilema is leading Upnd.

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