By Thomas Ngala
THE Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has warned that it is ready to take the bull by the horns and lock up any official serving in the current government once they are reported for corruption without any bias.
Acting director general Monica Mwansa trashed allegations that the ACC has only been investigating former government officials while ignoring those serving in the current regime despite reports of corruption against them for political reasons.
Mwansa told The Mast in an interview yesterday ACC would not hesitate to pounce on any current government official regardless of their position once they were reported for engaging in corruption.
“One example that easily comes to mind is director general WARMA [Water Resources Management Authority]…You are not seeing the sitting officials because there are people you want to see. You want deliberately to see that one and that one and that one. So, even when we have investigated certain sitting government officials, you have not seen them because they are not the ones you want to see,” she said.
“But, you are deliberately not seeing this as one of the examples because there are some you want to see. So, we are prosecuting both present and past. For the others you want to see, if there is something you see on them, come and give us the details.”
She encouraged members of the public to report all sorts of corruption, including the one perpetrated by the sitting officials.
She trashed persistent allegations of failing to investigate and prosecute officials in the United Party for National Development (UPND) government and only concentrating on those who served in the Patriotic Front (PF) administration.
Mwansa attributed the perception to the fact that people were not seeing serving officials being probed because there were specific ones they wanted to see arrested.
ACC had been receiving complaints against some of the senior government officials whom it had investigated and prosecuted.
Mwansa said there were more reports of corruption involving former government officials than the serving ones.
“It is not enough for you to go to your friend and start saying ah boi, I think that one is corrupt. But you are not coming to us. The next thing we hear is a conversation out there that we are not following those. Bring the details to us, we will follow them and do our work. We may have a few challenges in the law with regards to prosecuting certain officials. But we still do our work to see where we can investigate and prosecute and get back to the public. We owe you a duty to be informed…” she said. “We have received more reports about the past corruption. Because, it seems like when someone gets out of office, those that were around this person and were seeing some corrupt practices will quickly come and bring the information.”
She said she was not certain if people were scared of reporting corrupt activities by the serving government officials.
“We are not sure if when someone is in office people are scared to open up. But we have seen more in the past. If you give us more complaints on the present, you will see more numbers on the present being prosecuted. It is not enough to just talk about corruption. What are the details? Where can we start from? I will continuously encourage you the public to report even the current corruption. If you see there is corruption there, you have details, we can work… Please, just don’t post on social media. Bring that information to us,” Mwansa said.
“When you post on social media sometimes what we do is we will pick it up, start investigating. When we know we need more details, maybe you posted as anonymous, we don’t know where to get you to get more information.”
Mwansa said allegations that ACC was restricted from investigating the serving government officials were unfounded.
