OCIDA spokesperson Robert Sichinga says Zambia is debt-ridden today because those that were borrowing did so as an avenue for stealing.
Sichinga was commerce minister under Michael Sata’s government.
He says Our Civic Duty Association (OCIDA) has been working towards hatching a united civil society voice.
He explained that Zambia accumulated the current suffocating debt not by accident.
“It was known!” Sichinga, an accountant by profession, said as a side speaker, at a civil society organisations media briefing in Lusaka on Monday. “Those that were borrowing knew very well but it was an avenue for stealing. I can say this without any fear of anybody challenging me.”
He cited highlights in the Auditor General’s report and in the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) report, saying he drew his commentary authority from such documents.
“They are replete with issues of mismanagement of resources. These are government agency reports,” he noted. “We [also] have prosecutions that have gone to court and you know right from the word go that although theft has taken place, these will come out as a nolle, for obvious reasons.”
Sichinga explained that if there was any seriousness on the part of the government, “we would have gotten to the bottom of this [financial imprudence].”
“But the government itself, our leaders, are in the forefront, right from the Head of State…We were told that we are going to institute austerity measures…” Sichinga said.
He emphasised that the issue of borrowing was: “a convenient vehicle to stack money through projects.”
“Simple! You don’t even have to go very far; audit any road project. I can challenge you – you’ll see what I’m talking about. A third of any cost on a project goes to corruption, in one form or the other,” Sichinga said. “So, where we are supposed to do three kilometres of a road, we only do two kilometres. Where we are supposed to buy several fire tenders we are buying them at a million dollars…I was in charge of austerity measures in ZCCM for the 10 years I worked for ZCCM.”
He argued that he knows exactly what an austerity measure entails.
“You cannot say ‘I’m Head of State, I can do as I like. I can go and buy a plane,’ in the meantime local government workers have not been paid,’ Sichinga noted.
He added that Zambia had another challenge on the governance side.
“It’s important [that] we raise these issues. Bill 10 is a rescue mechanism. Anyone who has spent time to read Bill 10 will tell you this,” he said, further cautioning against the enactment of the contentious Bill 10.
Meanwhile, Sichinga indicated that the country got to where it is today, “whether you are talking about economics, whether you are talking about corruption, whether you are talking about no political space, or the violence,” because of a frail political leadership.
“All these are as a result of a poor political state,” said Sichinga. “As OCIDA we have been working on these particular issues, in terms of pulling together several organisations. We have reached out, since our formation in February [this year] to make sure that together we can [be] able to push forward the issue of where we should be as a country.”