NAME AND SHAME THEM

By Gershom Ndhlovu

Now that 42 companies have been blacklisted from accessing tenders on government projects, the next step is to name them so that they are shamed. The nation must know the companies involved so that when people see the owners, they know that the wealth they flaunt is ill-gotten.

Not only that, where it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that there was an element of dubiousness in their modus operandi, the company directors and civil servants that aid them in the process of defrauding the state must face the full force of the law. Simply banning the companies is not enough because the crafty ones would just go round, register new companies and carry on.

The question, surely, is how do these companies get the tenders in the first place, how are they paid if they do shoddy work and who supervises the jobs from government and sign them off as completed and payment sanctioned? There must be a rotten link somewhere in the government system particularly at the ministries of works and supply and finance and national planning as well as the Zambia National Tender Board.

Is it any wonder then that some people without noticeable jobs and government workers with inadequate official income are able to drink from upmarket pubs from one month-end to the next, drive expensive cars and even build multiple mansions which they complete in no time while their neighbours struggle to clear shrubs from their plots?

It is common knowledge that most of these companies have top civil servants, their relatives and friends as directors and their link in the provision of services, shoddy as they are, to government at inflated fees at that. Who doesn’t know how these people organise and manipulate pro-forma invoices in favour of their companies?

President Mwanawasa’s government is definitely showing political will in fighting the scourge of corruption but the general legal framework is not very supportive of the fight. Take the case of General Wilford Funjika who was found guilty but was merely given a slap on the wrist by through a suspended sentence.

Thank God, though, that someone realised that that was not right and the matter was taken to the High Court where it was ordered that he be sent away for at least nine months. There are also other baffling cases of high profile people convicted of offences related to the plunder of national resources but are on bail pending appeal in higher courts.

Strange this is because poorer people who are convicted for lesser offences are never accorded the privilege of bail and are seen jumping in and out of kasalanga prison trucks to go and hear their appeals whether in the High or Supreme courts. Invariably, most of these convicts are represented by legal aid lawyers. Those that are bailed after their conviction are obviously represented by top-notch lawyers.

This reminds me of an anecdote we used to hear when we were growing up in Kwacha: steal one ngwee and you will be jailed for a long time; steal a lot of money, you will not spend much time inside.

Contrast the leniency showed to high profile convicts of fraud and corruption in Zambia to similar crimes in America particularly involving the perpetrators of corporate fraud at Enron, the energy firm that collapsed a few years ago and that of and another American businessman, media mogul Conrad Black, who were jailed for not less than five years and were fined huge amounts of money.

In the name of human rights and the legal presumption of not guilty until proven otherwise, make corruption and fraud related cases bailable but remove that right once a person is found guilty by any court or otherwise extend the same privilege to all those who cannot afford K40 million bail when they appeal their cases.

Zambians certainly need a complete change of their mindset to root out the corrupt among them. Those in power should help by amending the necessary laws if the scourge is to be fought with any success.

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I noticed that Zambia joined the rest of the world in celebrating the International Consumer Rights Day. The panellists who talked about the day on last Saturday’s ZNBC Kwacha Good Morning read out an impressive list of the consumer rights but failed to mention what obtains in the developed countries whereby consumers return goods for the flimsiest of reasons like not being happy with the colour.

Take a walk around Kamwala, Freedom and Cha Cha Cha roads and all you find is the same notice: No Exchange, No Return, No Refund. This reminds me of an experience I had several years ago when I bought a Michael Jackson video tape, obviously pirate, from some shop in the town centre and all it could play where the first few minutes while the rest of it was blank.

The businessman of Asian origin would not have it when I took it back for either exchange or refund. I lost out and I am sure millions of Zambians still lose out because they cannot return faulty items in the face of the intimidating cardboard signs declaring that stores do not accept returns or exchanges.

Some of the shop owners are so brazen they even scrape out expiry dates from products on sale and still make it look like it is your fault for buying the items in question. The businessmen know that most of the people are ignorant of the Spartan laws in existence while others don’t just have the energy and resources to fight such cases in courts of law.

Consumer rights are human rights. There is need for government to put in place mechanisms in which these rights are protected by making it easier for consumers to seek simple recourse such as exchanging faulty goods, obtaining refunds and returning the goods.

Zambia could take a leaf from some developed countries where consumers can return an item within a given number of days if they do not want it for any reason as long as it is in an acceptable condition. But may be the problem could be with Zambians who would abuse the facility.