By OLIVER SAMBOKO
THE Anit-corruption Commission (ACC) should investigate the Lusaka City Council over the alleged missing K12m city market funds, Governance, Elections, Advocacy, and Research Services (GEARS) executive director MacDonald Chipenzi has demanded.
He said the revelation by the Lusaka City Council Mayor, Miles Sampa that of the K13m collected at Lusaka City Market, only K60,000 was receipted, makes very sad reading and an indication that there was rampant abuse of public funds by the local authority.
Mr Chipenzi also demanded that the named city market manager must be reported to Police and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) for possible investigations and to make him account for the missing funds.
He said the investigations should also be extended to council managers and directors for their possible complicit to the crime.
Mr Chipenzi said it was sad that it had to take the Mayor to disclose such gross abuse of poor marketeers’ money when the LCC had a fully operational management that should have detected the abuse of funds a long time ago.
“Lusaka City Market has become a milk cow where collected fees are unaccounted for by the relevant departments at the council yet the market remains poorly attended to and without properly functioning essential facilities such as toilets, drainages,” he said.
Mr Chipenzi commended Mr Sampa for coming out and alerting the nation on the happenings at the city council and urged the ACC not to wait until it was too late but should instead move in and bring those responsible to account for their actions.
“The tone of the mayor on the recent revelations depicted of a leader who is helpless and hopeless and yet he knows where such embezzlement of public resources cases must be reported,” he said.
Mr Chipenzi said there was no way the named Lusaka City market manager could have squandered the more than K12m alone without the knowledge and involvement of the relevant directors at the LCC.
Probe LCC over missing funds – Chipenzi
