MWENYE CANNOT BE CELEBRATED AS A HERO IN FIGHTING CORRUPTION, SAYS LAWYER MWILA
MWENYE CANNOT BE CELEBRATED AS A HERO IN FIGHTING CORRUPTION, SAYS LAWYER MWILA
SOCIALIST party legal chairman Simon Mulenga Mwila says it is wicked for former Anti-Corruption Commission board chairman Musa Mwenye to make revelations that the fight against corruption was choosy, after being axed.
Mwila says Mwenye cannot portray himself as a man of courage in the fight against corruption when he comfortably managed a board for an institution he claims is plagued by graft, yet he failed to provide solutions to stop the rot apart from demanding for lifestyle audits of public officials.
Last week the ACC board was dissolved by President Hakainde Hichilema after a former board member Dr O’Brien Kaaba ignited a tumult when he claimed that State chambers was enmeshed in corruption.
However on Sunday July 21, Mwenye penned down a mirthless article on his Facebook page reflecting on his time in office at the Anti-graft body saying those in authority failed to arrest erring government officials.
He said the push for arrests of government officials involved in corruption caused a discord between the ACC board and decision makers.
“Successive governments have manipulated the operations of the ACC by appointing a strong board to give a veneer of respectability but appointing management that is ‘user friendly’. But I am proud that the board I served refused to be intimidated, remained in position and demanded internally and publicly, both as a board and in our individual capacities, that the right thing be done,”said Mwenye
However Mwila says Mwenye has failed the integrity test.
“His revelations have come too late, if he noticed these irregularities, all he would have done is of course is told the President,” Mwila said.
“He’s not exhibited anything he’s just trying to show a that he’s a hero with some level of integrity which I feel he doesn’t have.”
He wondered why Mwenye found it complacent in a scandal-plagued institution and did not jump ship and had to wait for a board member to expose the ‘skeletons in the cupboard’.
“Why did it have to take him so long? did it have to take Dr Kaaba to make those revelations on how the board and management of ACC have been operating ? I don’t think so,”Mwila said.
“He should have done a very good service to this country the way Dr Henry Mbushi did he resigned when he noticed that this fight against corruption is not a fight against corruption actually, it’s a way of persecuting people that you perceive as your enemies and a way to cripple your political opponents.”
Mwila charged that Mwenye cannot be crowned the man of the moment in the fight against graft when he is neck deep in the waters, charging that his revelations were out of frustration.
“There’s no righteousness in what State counsel has done we respect him as our mentor but the manner in which he has come out he should have found a better way of airing his grievances,”he said.
“We will just take it that he’s done it out of frustration and it lacks any integrity, to me it doesn’t stand.”
The lawyer added that upon noticing frictions between the board and management Mwenye should have sought audience with the President if he felt he was not offered an ear within the institution.
“When he realized that the board and management are not in good terms or, they are not able to discharge the functions of the ACC that’s fighting corruption that President Hichilema has been singing about from the time he took office, I think he (Mwenye) should have alerted either the members of the public or written to the President and shown us a copy but he was quiet all along,”
“Now out of frustration he decides to be a hero and a saint that to me doesn’t pass the integrity test and I totally disagree with the manner he is doing things,” said Mwila.
CREDIT: Kalemba July 23, 2024.