President Hakainde Hichilema says his administration remains resolute in fighting entrenched and prevalent corruption in the country.
The Head of State explains that in its efforts to fight corruption, the government is implementing and enforcing comprehensive anti-corruption laws and regulations that hold individuals accountable for corrupt practices.
President Hichilema said corruption undermines economic development and poses a great danger to democracy, Human Rights and social progress hence the need to root it out.
President Hichilema said this when a delegation from Global Transparency International led by its Chairperson François Valerian accompanied by the TIZ Zambia Chapter members called on him at State House.
The Head of State informed the TIZ delegation, that by tightening the fiscal space in the country and channeling resources to needy areas, the government has managed to grow the economy from negative 2.8 percent under the previous regime to 4.5 percent under his administration.
“Despite the triple tragedy we face as a country through the outbreak of Cholera, COVID19, a debt mountain and now drought, we are still keeping the economy afloat primarily due to our fiscal discipline”.
“Professor and your delegation here, I wish to inform you that we shall not shield anyone in our fight against corruption. We know those who ruined this economy are saying we are only targeting them, but the reality is that even the people I appointed under my signature have not been spared,”.
“In just two and half years, I have fired about three or so Ministers, over 8 Permanent Secretaries, about 5 District Commissioners accused of corruption related practices so as to allow the due process of the law to take its course”. President Hichilema said
The President has since reiterated his government’s resolve to recover all assets and finances deemed to have been dubiously acquired.
“We are not walking back on asset recovery, because we need that money and give it back to the owners who are the Zambian people. We need that money for school desks, medicines, Channel it towards food security in view of the drought situation because we want to move away from rain fed agriculture to irrigation. In short we shall drive the asset recovery agenda even harder with quicker prosecutions”, The President vowed.
Meanwhile, President Hichilema has since called for collaboration with other countries and international organizations such as the Global Transparency to share information, coordinate investigations, and recover stolen assets.
“In our efforts of learning modern trends of fighting coordinated corruption, we have had to send colleagues to Angola a couple of times to learn how Angola has a bigger economy obviously with oil there but have been able to recover $25 Billion plus Dollars”.
“The lesson we have learnt from Angola was that they combined prosecution plus asset recovery and they have done very very well. If there is an African country we want to learn from as far as asset recovery is concerned, it’s definitely Angola”. President Hichilema stated.
He stated that as a way of transparency in the governance system, of the new dawn administration, government has signed into law the access to information bill, tightened the appetite to borrow, and established the judicial training institute through the judicial institute of Zambia Act number 14 of 2023 to equip the judiciary as well as the establishment of the economic and financial crimes court dedicated to speedily deal with corruption cases.
Speaking earlier, Global Transparency International led by its Chairperson François Valerian commended Zambia for the remarkable progress made in the fight against corruption.
Professor Valerian said the 33 percent to 37 percent corruption perceptions Index recorded by TIZ is a clear testament of the Zambian government’s corruption fight campaign.
“Mr. President, in 2021 you made a promise to fight corruption and under your administration, we can safely say we as an institution have seen steady progress”. Professor Valerian.
The meeting was also attended by Justice Minister Mulambo Haimbe, Mr, Reuben Lifuka who is the Vice Chair of the Global Board of Transparency International, and Vice Chair of the Council of the International Anti-Corruption Conference as well as TIZ Executive Director Maurice Nyambe
