By Aaron Ng’ambi
The government of the United Party for National Development (UPND), and its alliance partners in Zambia, began its mandate in August 2021, after winning the general elections with a landslide.
President Hakainde Hichilema, popularly known as HH, was a longtime critic of corruption in the previous regimes. He spent 15 years as opposition leader, using anti-corruption rhetoric to gain political mileage. Over time, this strategy paid off as he successfully convinced millions of Zambians that his predecessor, Edgar Lungu, and his party the Patriotic Front (PF) were corrupt to the core and should be voted out of power.
Hence, by 2020, Hichilema was vowing that, if elected to office as the seventh democratic president of Zambia, he would be different from the PF, and that he would put the fight against corruption at the centre stage of his presidency and government.
Unfortunately, time has revealed that HH is no different from any other average African politician who says one thing and does the opposite. The man used propaganda and high-level, sophisticated local and international public relations experts to project an image of him as a “political saint”, a near-perfect figure who would free Zambia from the shackles of corruption. The ploy was believable and he fooled a lot of people.
But, sadly, President HH’s mask, worn for a very long time, is coming off. And his alleged fight against graft is crumbling before our eyes. It is evident that he is either implicated in corruption or outright complicit because he has done almost nothing about the allegations of corruption made against his cabinet ministers, some of his staff at state house and even his private associates.
Nonetheless, a recent report by the Financial Intelligence Centre has shaken up the UPND government. This report, for the year 2023, indicates that corruption and the plunder of national resources has increased drastically under Hichilema and his “new dawn” government in Zambia.
In fact, the same report shows that the value of suspected illicit financial transactions rose by about 132%, from 5.8 billion Zambian kwacha in 2022 to 13.58 billion, in 2023. This is unprecedented, so much so that it provoked an immediate cosmetic response from Hichilema himself. He issued a statement on 10 July, saying that the findings would be investigated.
On the other hand, vice president Mutale Nalumango is on record failing to answer straightforward questions in parliament over the report, a clear sign that the regime is in disarray concerning corruption.
To make matters worse, just a few days after the release of the report, another scandal, at the ministry of health, was exposed. It was established that the ministry, through the Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency, had engaged the Unified Procurement Authority of Egypt for the supply of medicines and other medical supplies, pegged at $65 million, in August 2023.
However, out of the scheduled delivery of 74 containers of supplies, only about 13 reached the agency’s central warehouse. The remaining 61 containers were diverted to a secret location in the capital Lusaka, the exposé showed.
Meanwhile, hospitals and clinics have experienced drug and supplies shortages since HH and his government won the elections three years ago. This is absurd and shows gross misconduct on the part of the government. Because of this huge embarrassment, the Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency’s director general has been suspended by the board, pending investigations.
Arguably, the same institution now wants to claim that the amount spent on this messy procurement was only $24 million, not the reported $65 million.
It is utter nonsense for the health minister Sylvia Masebo, and her permanent secretary, to claim ignorance over the undelivered drugs and supplies of such a high-level transaction.
Masebo made a statement in parliament during which she took no responsibility for this huge corruption scandal. This is because she knew that her boss, HH, would do nothing about it, except pay lip service by promising that a forensic audit of the transaction would be carried out. And sure enough, President HH has not fired Masebo, after this scandal — but has since transferred her to the ministry of lands.
In any civilised society, especially in a functional democracy, the president would have fired the minister of health, and everyone else involved in the scandal, without waiting for a so-called forensic audit, even simply because lives have been lost due to the “lack” of drugs in hospitals and clinics countrywide. But the president is incompetent and cannot act because he is either protecting himself or someone close to him.
Furthermore, the Anti-Corruption Commission, which is supposed to be an institution that fights past, present and future corruption, has been compromised in the three years of Hichilema’s rule. Whistleblower O’Brien Kaaba, a courageous commissioner, spoke out about the corruption of the now disgraced director general, who has since resigned, due to public pressure.
The revelations coming from Kaaba focus on corruption at state chambers (the attorney general, solicitor general and director of public prosecutions), not just the Anti-Corruption Commission. The nation has been informed that certain individuals in the state chambers are cutting corrupt deals and facilitating graft.
This has put law-enforcement agencies in an awkward position as the state chambers ought to be an ally in fighting corruption. No serious crusade against corruption can work when the heart of the legal machinery for government is contaminated.
Kaaba indicated that state chambers are also active in looking for litigants to sue the government and pre-agree to settle or enter consent orders involving huge sums of money for them to get kickbacks. The scheme has been perfected to the extent that some orders are now signed using judges outside Lusaka to avoid public scrutiny and media attention in the capital.
This explains the instances where UPND cadres who accused the previous government of illegal detention have now been given fast and fat settlements.
If Hichilema was serious about the fight against corruption, he should have dismissed his senior legal advisors and either set up a commission of inquiry or authorised a special audit into all the high-value payments authorised by state chambers over the past three years. But, of course, the man is either incompetent, compromised or complicit in these crimes.
Kaaba cited specific examples and named individuals, such as the solicitor general, as being involved in such schemes. It is alleged that the current solicitor general received a bribe amounting to $500 000 from a named company. He denies the allegations and has since sued Kaaba for defamation.
When these revelations were made public by Kaaba, the Anti-Corruption Commission’s director general was not fired by HH but resigned. Unfortunately, the board had to pay the price as the president dissolved it immediately — a senseless and unjustified move. Just before it was dissolved, the commission issued a statement confirming that they are, and had been, investigating the solicitor general.
This is interesting because the commission has refused to inform the public if this is true or not. Moreover, why is this same solicitor general still in office, if indeed the Anti-Corruption Commission is investigating him?
HH is silent over the conduct — or rather misconduct — of the solicitor general. But the commission board, which was doing the right thing, had to be dismantled. This is suspicious and the actions, or inaction, of the president raise more questions than answers. Who is he protecting by shielding the solicitor general? If anything, HH should be on the side of the whistleblower Kaaba, a university lecturer who until recently served as commissioner at the now dissolved Anti-Corruption Commission.
In the final analysis, Hichilema might have been a good opposition leader for 15 years but he’s definitely not an impressive president. Just after winning the elections of 2021, HH told the BBC he would appoint people of good character to public office. It took him two or three months to name his cabinet, claiming that he was doing things “methodically”.
The biggest problem with Hichilema’s appointments is patronage because a number of people in key positions happen to be his former personal lawyers, such as the minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security, the Director of Public Prosecution and the Solicitor General. The attorney general is the first lady’s cousin, while the president’s legal advisor is there on account of his late father who worked with HH. Thus, there are no checks and balances in a system where the key appointees are drawn from a small pool of party confidants, all of whom are considered out of their depth.
Perhaps this is part of the reason the president lacks the guts to fire any of his appointees. Instead, he asks them to resign, as was the case with the disgruntled former minister of foreign affairs.
The same scenario played out with the former director general of the Anti-Corruption Commission, who could not be saved, even by his boss, after the corruption scandals at the commission were leaked. All Hichilema did was to politely ask this fellow to resign and then accept his resignation.
In a nutshell, to take root, the fight against corruption in Zambia needs genuine and honest leadership. It is impossible for any leader or president to claim that they are fighting corruption when their own means of wealth accumulation remains a mystery. Also, for the sake of transparency, integrity and accountability, HH should have declared his assets upon assuming office, as prescribed by law.
Finally, we have to recount that on March 31, 2023, US Vice President Kamala Harris, visited Zambia and pledged $16 million for the fight against corruption. Regrettably, now we know, from an insider at the dissolved commission, that those HH entrusted to fight corruption are corrupt themselves. How will this government account for the money from the US government for fighting graft?
These are fundamental issues that all well-meaning Zambians should be concerned with. Otherwise, we are likely to see many more corruption scandals in the Hichilema administration.
Aaron Ng’ambi is a geopolitical analyst and newspaper columnist, leadership instructor and a social entrepreneur.
Sources: Mail&Guardian
