PRESS RELEASE
16th December, 2013
We wish to commend President Michael Sata for listening to our advice to fire Hon. Ronald Chitotela and Hon. Rogers Mwewa respectively for their allegedly fraudulent involvements in the purchase of write-off ambulances in their constituencies.
This is the kind of political will and action that is needed if we have to meaningfully fight corruption and abuse of authority.
We further wish to make the following recommendations to effectively enhance the fight against corruption:
1. Enact legislation that will guarantee the absolute independence and autonomy of the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Judiciary
2. Enact legislation to give the Auditor General’s Report the force of law to bind the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to act on the Auditor General’s Report without delay. We are very concerned that the little or no action is taken to bring the named suspects in the Auditor General’s Report to account.
3. Increase budgetary allocation to the office of the Auditor General for training, capacity building and decentralization of the operations of the said office.
4. The Report and Recommendations of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) are submitted to the office of the DPP for possible prosecution of suspects of misapplication, misappropriation and embezzlement of public funds.
We further urge every citizen to make the fight against corruption their personal fight. Let us not leave this fight to government alone. We, the general citoizens are the ones who suffer the consequences of corruption.
Prepared and issued by:
Antonio Mwanza
FDD Spokesperson