OPINION: Multi-Billion Donor Fraud Could Provide the Turnaround President Lungu Needed on Weeding out Corruption

The last 48 hours have provided the kind of drama that Zambian politics has not seen in a long time. It could only be second to the succession mayhem after the death of President Michael Sata in the Patriotic Front.  In just 48 hours President Lungu has had to act with the decisiveness reminiscent of revolutionary leaders. He has ordered an inquiry and with it followed the sacking of Community Development Minister Emerine Kabanshi. It could get worse for those at the centre of the multi-million dollar theft of Social Cash Transfer Funds as he has also given the signal to the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) and Anti Commission (ACC) to be on the tails of the wrong doers. This is as it should be. We have no doubt there is going to be more kill on this matter beyond Kabanshi. The small time players within the equation and bigger fish could also be fished out and left to dry. We believe the message has been sent that there could be no sacred cows along the way but anyone guilty of graft could be swept in tide.

Naysayers understandably will never quit asking for more. In the words of Robert Marley, give them an inch, they will take a yard, give them yard they will take a mile. Even when the probe was ordered, knives were out proclaiming that it was belatedly ordered. With the first big casualty claimed, the vibe has changed to Kabanshi being a sacrificial. What then should President Lungu have done? After all doing nothing could have had the Laura Miti-esque-like stone throwers lining up to get their usual verbal kills.

It may not mean everything or anything to the Miti-esque army but everything has to start from somewhere otherwise this could be the extra push President Lungu may have needed to flex his muscles and rid himself of some of the rotten eggs in his government.