THANK YOU MASEBO FOR SHOWING US HOW CORRUPTION MUST BE FOUGHT

LOVE or hate her, one thing you can never take away from Minister of Health Sylvia Masebo is her will-power. Poised to fail soon after her appointment due to the politics that surrounded her ministry created by those who were kicked out, Sylvia has managed to weave through the storm, not because she is the most protected minister, but because she is one of the brave women in the current administration and credit must be given where it is due.

Her frontline leadership concept is something most male ministers under the current administration can only dream of and the cholera pandemic has been a blessing in disguise as it has given her the opportunity to prove critics wrong and has helped her set her own bar very high as she has been on top of things.

We are not saying that she has been perfect all around. Sylvia’s only outdoing is the emotions she attaches to everything which is not good for her own health but even in her weakness, she has demonstrated servant-leadership in most cases and her recent decision to have a hand-s-on experience by sleeping at the cholera centre at the Heroes stadium to understand what was going on was just one of the times when she took it upon herself to ensure that things were correctly done.

And yes, she got what she wanted and because she leads from the front, she managed to get to the bottom of the allegations of corruption in the recruitment of volunteers who helped ease the cholera burden by offering their service for free, prompting President Hakainde Hichilema to direct that all volunteers should be employed permanently by the Government.

As usual, there are those with debased minds; callous individuals who see nothing wrong with nepotism and corruption, who decided to sneak in their own relatives’ names and those who paid them to be on the list of those to be employed, ahead of the selfless individuals who offered themselves to serve this country even when they were not paid for the job they were doing.

When the complaint became loud and clear, Sylvia wanted to catch these dissidents, pants down and the only way was not to send his directors or other technocrats, most of which, we must admit, have really made her life difficult in that ministry. She did it personally and she got the result she was looking for; the fact is that the complaints about corruption at Heroes were true and those involved were given marching orders.

We agree with Sylvia’s way of doing things. It is an undeniable fact that corruption among civil servants is still rocket high and the only way of getting rid of the scourge is by getting rid of those corrupt elements not only as a deterrent to would-be offenders, but also to stop transferring rotten eggs to other areas because that does not solve the problem. When you transfer a rotten element, you are just shifting corruption from one end of the country to the next.

We are not proponents of the removal of civils servants from offices each time there is change of the Government but it is also suicidal to keep the very individuals that want the new Government to fail. There are people who do not change no matter how many times you warn them. Those Heroes maniacs who reached a point of replacing the old log book with a new one to disadvantage those who were volunteering, knew exactly what they wanted.

They wanted to sabotage the system so that the Government could look bad. They cared less about those who were toiling. They cared more about their relatives whom they wanted to rope-in at the expense of those who genuinely helped the Government to battle the cholera pandemic.

Corruption in the civil service is still rampant because most of those who perpetuated the scourge in yesteryears have been allowed to remain in those positions where they do as they please and this will have huge consequences in the future as long as these are allowed to have a field day of the system.

Sylvia initially had a tough time at the Ministry of Health because of the same issue of allowing people to misbehave because of divided loyalty between those who were in the Government then and now. That ministry was painted the den of thievery and Sylvia was personally targeted because of her heavy-handedness. It was only after a few rotten groundnuts were removed that things stabilized a bit but that is not to say all is well in that ministry.

For as long as the Government continue treating people who are purposefully derailing service delivery to the people who put the United Party for National Development (UPND) in power, there may be a huge price to pay at the end of the day.

Look at all the systems across the spectrum… there is total degeneration because cadres from the previous regime are still running the show. Foreign Missions have not been spared from this. Talk about the Immigration and Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA’s) operations in border areas; it is a sorry sight.

A classic example is the Katima Mulilo border where all manner of nonsense is going on, on the Zambian side. Trucks take days to be cleared. People entering or leaving the country have no kind words for Customs and Immigration officials at Katima Mulilo. Some of these officers purposefully frustrate travelers because they want to be given kick-backs for them to provide a service for which they are paid.

Today, the Botswana Government is complaining about activities at the border on the Zambian side and painting Zambia black because of the very misguided elements that are accustomed to corruption and use of underhand methods to amass wealth. Most of these are the people who have been in these border areas for a long time and are used to crookedness. These are elements that have been tolerated to remain in these offices and one wonders where their superiors are and why they are failing to rectify the situation.

If you go to Passport Office today, that office is the home of corruption; grand corruption which is perpetuated openly and as long as you do not agree to oil most of those officers, you can never get your passport on time, not because there is no material to print them, but to force you to bend to their machinations.

All that is as a result of leaving people in offices to continue doing the wrong things and this is why we support Sylvia because if we are to beat the corruption cancer, as a country, we need to be decisive and deliberate. Waiting until someone is caught stealing will not help. Some of these people are so connected in mischief that even if they are caught, they will use the same system to protect themselves against prosecution. People who are doing wrong things in public offices must be shown the exit door. There must be no room for negotiation. They must be fired and as long as the country does not get into the Sylvia Masebo gear, the fight against corruption will appear like an academic exercise in futility as long as people are still comfortable to engage into the scourge despite the President warning time without number that he does not support corruption. On this one, Sylvia is spot on and must be supported by all well-meaning Zambians.