By NATION REPORTER
EMERITUS Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu has described the arrest of Auditor General Dr Dick Sichembe as an attempt by the UPND government to cover up its economic transgressions including corruption and maladministration scandals in the nearly two years of being in power.
And Archbishop Mpundu has said Auditor General Sichembe should be allowed to expose, name and shame criminals in the UPND government by allowing him to publish the audit report for the period the UPND has been in power instead of harassing and blackmailing him.
Archbishop Mpundu says it had become clear that the UPND was avoiding transparency because the Hakainde Hichilema administration was determined to hide its wrongs and scandals committed against Zambians.
“Criminals must not hide, they must never be protected. Criminals must be exposed, named, shamed, tried, found guilty and punished by sending them to jail even for 20 years or more so that those who get into government to enrich themselves should know the perils of being corrupt, of being criminals. The arrest of the Auditor General is just a way of hiding the wrongs, the crimes that have been committed even at the highest level of government.”
“But tell them that do not arrest the Auditor General but arrest those who are criminals, those corrupt individuals in government. We want to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about how they have managed our resources in the two years they have been in government,” Archbishop Mpundu said.
Archbishop Mpundu said the UPND government should let the Auditor General complete his report so that it could be taken to Parliament where it would be debated so that Zambians should know the extent of damage that has been caused to the country’s treasury.
He said the arrest and persecution of Dr Sichembe was not going to cleanse the current administration of its wrongs, advising that Government should leave the Auditor General alone so that he could perform his mandate as constitutionally given to him.
“We want to know the whole story and let government leave the Auditor General alone. Anything else is just masquerading, hiding the monkey behind and God knows it must be very big that is why government is very nervous about the audit report that is about them,” Archbishop Mpundu said.
He said he was worried that some of the people involved in the wrongs being committed under the UPND government shall never be investigated because they were being protected by their system they had corrupted.
“You do not arrest the person who is the architect of producing an audit report. What are you scared of? There must be transparency. These arrests and interrogations should be done transparently…but we know it is about hiding and protecting the big guns behind the corruption rot. Let the audit report be presented by the person who has prepared it,” Archbishop Mpundu said.
