ACC BOSS, TOM SHAMAKAMBA THREATENS UNZA LECTURER FOR THE ARTICLE HE WROTE ON THE WEAKNESSES OF ACC

Dr O’Brien Kaaba writes 

“To demonstrate how bad the situation is, a few days ago, I wrote a one pager opinion in my individual academic capacity indicating why I thought the fight against corruption was crumbling. I never made any personal attack on anyone and focused my attention on institutional weaknesses. The morning after the article was published, the ACC Director General Tom Shamakamba called me through the phone of his deputy threatening to sort me out for commenting on the underperformance of the ACC in the fight against corruption.

The strong anti-corruption fight President Hichilema launched when he ascended to office has ebbed off and lost traction. The institutions charged with fighting corruption are simply massaging, bandaging and covering up corruption. Isn’t it strange that ACC can make headline news for arresting and prosecuting a poor clinical officer for signing off two employment contracts while the ACC has done nothing about the more cases involving millions of dollars exposed in FIC reports?

Why should the poor be prosecuted aggressively while the rich and powerful are let off the hook and given immunity (read “rewarded”). Just what has gone wrong?

Here are my three (3) areas of vulnerability, which the President needs to urgently attend to if the fight has to be resuscitated, look credible and gain traction.

1.State Chambers are in the Forefront of Looting: State Chambers are in the forefront of cutting corrupt deals and facilitating corruption. This has put all law enforcement agencies in an awkward situation as state chambers ought to be an ally in fighting corruption.

No serious crusade against corruption can yield fruits when the heart of the legal machinery for government is contaminated. The level of corruption is sickening, to the extent that state chambers are the ones looking for litigants to sue the government and pre-agree to settle or enter consent orders involving huge sums of money.

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 Lusaka. The president needs to do two things:

a) dismiss his senior legal advisors and

b) either set up a commission of inquiry or authorize a special audit into all the high value payments authorized by state chambers in the last three years.

2. ACC is captured: It is a mistake to expect ACC to be an effective tool for fighting corruption in its current form. It is a captured institution. The forces that are ripping off the state resources through state chambers also have their stranglehold on ACC.

It is no wonder the media has been reporting that the ACC management has simply cut off the board from decision making at the ACC. If the media reports are true, the ACC is not accountable to its board but to the same corrupt elements looting public resources. This suggests the capture is so complete and corruption reigns with impunity.

To demonstrate how bad the situation is, a few days ago, I wrote a one pager opinion in my individual academic capacity indicating why I thought the fight against corruption was crumbling. I never made any personal attack on anyone and focused my attention on institutional weaknesses.

The morning after the article was published, the ACC Director General Tom Shamakamba called me through the phone of his deputy threatening to sort me out for commenting on the underperformance of the ACC in the fight against corruption.

This shows the impunity and arrogance that has come to characterize the ACC management. It is not different in any way from the daily threats many of us faced under PF. During the Bill 10 debate, I wrote a few articles criticizing the Bill and appeared as an expert witness in the Constitutional Court during the Bill 10 case.

PF officials reacted by threatening to burn me in my house at night. Why should Tom be allowed to behave like the lawless PF carders and threaten me for making independent and scholarly criticism of the underperformance of the ACC?

What kind of impunity is that? Is it not our duty as citizens to hold those who hold public office accountable? Must we let elections degenerate into a game of trading one set of thieves for another while we remain silent?

What should the president do to revive ACC? He must get rid of the current management of the ACC and bring on board people with a track record of fighting corruption and standing on the side of good governance. The president must appoint someone beyond reproach, and has a history of dedication to the cause and not someone who simply wants to get a salary and accumulate travel allowances while neglecting her/his core duties.

3.Corruption Tainted Settlements: The UPND government went to town denouncing the former DPP under President Lungu’s tenure when it discovered that she had entered into settlements immunizing some of the individuals accused of serious acts of corruption.

This partly explains why the government instituted her removal. Yet in less that three years, the ACC has entered in more scandalous settlements with some of the people accused of the most heinous acts of corruption.

The media has been reporting a shocking trend where the ACC simply asks suspects to return just a fraction of the loot and keep the rest while the suspect is given immunity from prosecution. Using this mechanism, ACC is basically allowing both PF and UPND aligned officials facing serious accusations of corruption to buy off their freedom, using the same resources looted from the public.

As long as one is willing to give a cut, they are let off. Are the people who think that ACC is now preoccupied with finding people with big loot, immunize them and share the loot not justified? It is clear that the provision allowing the grant of immunity is being abused.

The president should facilitate the amendment of the immunity clause to narrow its use and infuse inbuilt safeguards against its abuse in order to protect public interest.

Beyond these short-term measures, there is need for serious institutional reform of ACC, to redesign its structures and professionalize its operations. In its current state it cannot be relied on to effectively fight sophisticated high-level corruption.

Doesn’t that explain why the ACC has done very little in relation to sophisticated transnational acts of corruption recently?

There is need to also focus on preventing corruption and fostering a culture of accountability by enacting a robust asset disclosure law to replace the current scattered and outdated pieces of legislation.

To also get a national picture of the depth of the problem, the President should consider setting up a commission of inquiry to find out the depth of the problem. The mandate of the commission should be broad and extend to both current and past corruption.

This will give the country an opportunity for stock taking and understanding of the depth of the challenge.

Dr. O’Brien Kaaba teaches constitutional law at the University of Zambia and is a senior research fellow at Saipar.”