THERE IS NO HONOUR IN STEALING
Let us correct one dangerous lie before it grows legs.
A person convicted for corruption is not a political prisoner. A person jailed for abusing public resources is not a martyr. A person who helped loot a nation is not a hero of democracy.
There is no honour in stealing.
I say this as someone who suffered under the PF regime. I was detained for seven days and seven nights without trial, not for theft, not for violence, not for corruption, but for demanding accountability. So I know the difference between political persecution and criminal accountability.
What some PF surrogate groupings are now doing is dangerous. They are trying to rebrand corruption as victimhood. They are calling convicts “political prisoners” and openly promising to release them if they return to power. That is not democracy. That is a confession.
The truth is simply that Zambia is paying today for yesterday’s corruption. Inflated contracts, reckless borrowing, politically connected tenders, abandoned projects, abused Eurobond money, and a culture where public office became a feeding trough.
According to the Auditor General’s Special Report on Public Debt, Zambia’s external public debt rose from about US$1.98 billion in 2011 to US$13.04 billion in 2021. That is not a small matter. That is a national wound. The same report shows that the three Eurobonds alone totalled US$3 billion, while expensive supply credit loans and other reckless borrowing pushed the country into distress.
This is why UPP strongly urges the UPND Government, now and in its next term, to undertake a serious forensic audit of public contracts across ministries, councils, districts, parastatals and agencies. Every inflated contract must be reviewed. Every stolen kwacha must be traced. Every thief must pay back.
We must also fully account for the Eurobond. What was borrowed in the name of the Zambian people must be explained to the Zambian people.
Those who stole from hospitals, roads, farmers, students, councils and public projects did not steal from government. They stole from widows, marketeers, children, workers, pensioners and future generations.
Let no one insult this country by calling looters political prisoners.
A political prisoner suffers for truth.
A corrupt prisoner suffers for theft.
Zambia must never confuse the two.
Saviour Chishimba
President
United Progressive People (UPP)
