Quarterly Bulletin

Corruption in Zambia needs not to be defined by a standard thesaurus. This is because the thesaurus synonyms, though descriptive enough in broadening our understanding of the term, “corruption”, falls short in portraying the actual impact levels that prevail in Zambia in its time.

Therefore, I would rather we refer to corruption as the bad seed, meaning that we do not yet know how it will appear when fully grown. But at least we know that it spreads from the underground through the roots, stem and branches via the leaves to the flowers.
Thus corruption in Zambia can be said to be deeply rooted in the system of governance to which it is part. Moreover in the stem of it, which is the Executive in the separation of powers, that’s where it gets even more complex.

We see it manifested, for example, among public officials in health as Kashiwa Bulaya, building from intelligence into exile as Xavier Chungu, and erroneously dispersed through the land as Gladys Nyirongo. Lastly we hear it through the grapevine of Vernon Mwaanga.

Therefore, it threatens not only Zambia’s future but also Zambia’s present which every day becomes its past. It can without a doubt be said that this corruption is in fact very inevitable. Because it is a tree that grows from a bad seed, we can only defeat it by uprooting it, rather than only pruning its branches.

In other words, we can stop it as suggested by uprooting it. This of course entails a lot of hard work and cooperation without relenting.

Victoria  Mushibwe
Mtendere Parish
Lusaka

PROBLEM OF CORRUPTION CALLS FOR MORAL REVOLUTION

That Zambia has in recent years witnessed an unprecedented rise in economic growth is too obvious to be doubted. Yet owing to corruption this same country, with its extraordinary resourceful and courageous people, has become the pariah of the international community.

Disheartening levels of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, crime and many other social evils are still pervasive and growing at an increasing scale. To this paradox many papers have been written mostly focussing on adjustments in institutional arrangements, political constitutions, political structures, as means to fight corruption and so ensure a just distribution of economic benefits.

This paper takes a somewhat novel stance by arguing that the fight against corruption, especially that occasioned by nepotism, calls for a moral revolution.  While much concentration has been on institutions, a shift to focusing on the human person, who is the actor in the distributive process, is necessary. It is doubtful that changes in institutions would immediately change people’s attitudes. But a simultaneous change in institutional arrangements and people’s attitudes in desirable ways is likely to have effective results.

LIMITATIONS OF INSTITUTIONS

The limitation of focusing on adjustments in institutional arrangements and political structures is that the human person is left aside. The human person normally acts out of free choice and moral conviction. It cannot therefore be presumed that changes in institutional arrangements would prevent patronage, communal relationship, kinship and extended family obligations and loyalties from affecting a fair distribution of resources.

No doubt the government of Zambia has created a task force that continues to tighten and impose sanctions against public officials who are involved in corruption. Yet this has not reduced the intensity with which these untrammelled (unchallenged) acts are gaining ground in Zambia. Ghanaian Philosopher Kwame Gyekye argues: "We know for a fact that the existence of the law with its phalanx of punishment and other kinds of sanctions does not by itself make a person moral."

A realistic approach to dealing with the problem of corruption, in distribution, especially that occasioned by nepotism, is to change the attitudes and responses of people to accepted moral (and legal) rules and prescriptions.  

The main problem why nepotism grossly affects a fair distribution of resources in Zambia is not because institutions to prevent such untrammelled acts are weak per se, but as Gyekye argues, it is because traditional morality is being translated unfittingly into the running of modern institutions. And besides, nepotism -- though ill spoken of in public -- is somewhat accepted unofficially. To show that the problem is clearly moral requires further elaboration.

What shows that the main thrust of the problem of corruption in the distributive process is moral is because "as long as the fruits of corruption of whatever degrees are suitably and vigorously re-distributed according to the logic of patronage, there seems to be no need for censure."

What is regarded as dishonesty in countries well "indoctrinated with political ideals may appear as morally in order in a society where the bonds of kinship are strong and the concept of nationhood remains something recent and artificial."

Nepotism thus seems to be an accepted practice in Zambia, at least informally. In fact, in Zambia supporters will readily applaud when one of their own political "leaders appropriate millions in the capital city but at the same time they expect him to be scrupulously honest in the management of his village finances." This means that the expectation of probity is limited to one's kith and kin and members of one's community.

When this kind of moral foundation is taken in its raw form and uncritically incorporated into the running of a modern state, the results are disastrous. There is no clear distinction between the public and the private. And so government officials are continuously pressed by their families and clans to remember them.

If the incumbent is not doing anything substantial for his or her family and clan, despite his or her limitations in the use of public resources, he or she even feels guilty because not fulfilling essential family obligations. This follows from the fact that the family or clan as a whole might have supported the incumbent from childhood with the knowledge that one day they would share the benefits were this person to occupy an office of power or own wealth.

Despite these wishes, many officials cannot afford to give each member of their family and clan money from their salaries. And so in the event of any job opportunity, they immediately offer it to their family member in order to reduce the burden of giving money to every member of the family, which is practically impossible. This seems a plausible solution were Zambia only peopled with one family or ethnic group.

However, Zambia is composed of a wide variety of ethnic groups so that even the idea of giving work to one's own family members is highly questionable. What if the particular  official  has  a  chain  of relatives who can fill all government positions in the department where the named official is in charge? Where will all the others go? This injustice forgets the plight of other people.

Besides, economic benefits are often shared through income and if it is only some particular families that can fit themselves in secure employment, then they alone will be in a position to harvest what is gained from economic growth. This will surely lead to unequal distribution of resources.

This being the key to the problem, at least in Zambia, we need a moral revolution so that we embrace values that are compatible with the running of a modern nation-state. Or at most we start striving towards the realisation that it is wrong to use public resources for personal ends.

THE VIABILITY OF A MORAL REVOLUTION

Gyekye puts this need for a moral revolution more lucidly when he writes:

There are some features of the traditional African system of values that would, in the interest of the progress and success of the politics of the new African nation-state (a heterogeneous state), need to undergo profound changes by way of substantive moral revolution. An entirely new morality with respect to attitudes towards government and public property and resources, and hence towards public office, will need to be created. People will have to be morally weaned from the influences of communo-cultural loyalties that obscure and subvert devotion and commitment to the national political community. A new national political morality that considers it totally morally unacceptable to use one's official position to obtain jobs for members of the extended family will need to be put in place. In other words, a new conception of loyalty to the state fashioned and underpinned by new moral values, will need to be created.

The point that I am at pains to make is that there is a pressing need for "fundamental changes either in the moral beliefs, values, and ideals of a society or in the attitude and response of individuals in a society to that society's moral beliefs and values." Unless this is done, changes in institutions will always remain abstractions without the willing cooperation of people.

Gyekye therefore proposes two kinds of revolutions that are necessary to fight corruption engendered by family obligations: one such revolution is substantive while another commitmental. The former  involves  the  fundamental shifts in the existing moral paradigms or moral conceptual schemes and the adoption of new ones. Jesus Christ set a good example of this kind of revolution when he replaced the morality of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" by that of "turning the other cheek.”

To this effect changes in institutional arrangements are necessary only to complement already well built altitudes against corruption so as to reinforce the new order. Corruption insinuates itself into the existing order and social political revolutions seek to make corrections to such practices.

A substantive revolution may be done consciously or unconsciously. It may be conscious when individuals disillusioned and disenchanted with the conventional morality that supports, say nepotism, is condemned by making it known that it is wrong to use public resources to enrich one's family or clan, and in place encourage a morality of equal treatment of people regardless of their ethnic background.

At another level this revolution can be effected unconsciously from real changes in "socio-economic circumstances." If hard work and self-reliance replace complete dependence on certain already well-to-do family members, nepotism might be reduced.

To a certain degree substantive revolution is lacking in many significant ways and one immediately requires a commitmental revolution to augment it. Substantive moral revolution might at once impose an awareness of a moral rule. But what is required is not simply awareness but the obeying of a moral rule. I can know, for instance, that giving land to my relatives alone when I am in a position of power is wrong.

But merely to know is not enough; I must refrain from giving land on that basis. Commitmental revolution, therefore, "involves fundamental   changes   in   one's attitudes and responses to accepted moral beliefs and rules in the positive direction, and this in turn involves, or rather requires, making the greatest effort of will."

One requires a strong will to follow a moral belief with practical commitment. For example, one might have the knowledge that nepotism is wrong taking Kantian morality as yardstick. In the event that the situation is reversed, the person who discriminates against others on the basis of ethnicity would not himself want to be mistreated; hence the fulfilment of the categorical imperative. But merely to know that something is wrong and to stop doing it are not the same. The former is only conceptual while the latter calls for action.

INTERNALISING MORAL VALUES

Morality in the sense of moral "attitudes or responses can hardly be legislated. Laws can be enacted but the will to obey the law cannot." In my Chewa culture there is a saying, which translates: "A chief can tell a mean person to share his or her harvest with the poor, but he cannot make the person upright." So how do people then internalise the supposed moral values?

While it does remain the project of each individual to continue   exercising   the  will   to resist the temptation of corruption and embrace a system of distributing resources by merit and need, individual allegiance to family still remain pressing and fundamental.

Whereas this may remain, especially in the case of Zambia where people are poor on average, one's temptation to stop following a new moral order may be weakened if the public officials who impose the prescriptions of the law do not stop favouring people in the distributive process on the basis of ethnicity.

Those in positions of authority therefore should lead by example by being impartial in the allocation of resources and by internalising the ideal that it is wrong to use public resources for private ends. Other people should also endeavour to internalise such moral precepts.

Successful generations may come to embrace the morality of the new order that would not look at the individual's background but would treat all people equally. In turn laws and institutions will be objectifications of the will of the people.

MORAL REVOLUTION

If this paper has done anything, it is to try to show that Zambia's economic growth is far from being a thing to be proud of. Unless the factors that negate fair distribution are removed and distributive justice sought, the majority of Zambians will forever remain spectators of the riches of their own country being enjoyed by a few individuals. These factors that negate fair distribution of resources should not only be viewed at the level of institutions but also in the moral dispositions of people.

Since corruption seems to be the main hindrance to the trickling down of economic benefits to the masses, it must be fought painstakingly at the level of institutions. Most importantly, corruption must be fought, using a moral revolution, to change the attitudes and dispositions of people.

After a new moral order has been inaugurated, there is hope for sustained economic growth in Zambia.

 Brydon N. S. Nkhoma
University of Zimbabwe
Harare