Show Me The Money!
Lawrence Temfwe February 19th, 2007
It is now three days since the Show Me The Money, a book by Transparency International which reveals how the Government of the Republic of Zambia lost about 6.9 trillion Kwacha of public funds over twenty years was launched in Lusaka. So far Pete Henriot the director for Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection is the only church leader who has given a statement. In his response to the revelation he said, “The book highlighted gross dishonesty and disgusting greed. It is disgusting and a sad story because it is causing a lot of suffering and death.”
Pete Henriot an American priest who has lived in Zambia for several years and has earned the right to be heard thinks that ordinary Zambians whom this loss affects much don’t have what it takes to stop the corruption or theft taking place in the high places of the public service. But are ordinary Zambians so ready to concede their individual freedom and powers to leaders who are too eager to have it and yet are not are not prepared to be accountable to them?
The answer is simple. The millions of Zambians living below $1 per day are ignorant about the powers the Republican Constitutions assigns to them. The civil society and the church leaders who are knowledgeable about the Constitution focus their attention on the middle income class who constitutes of only a few thousand families. The middle income class of university lecturers and the managers employed in private companies end up complaining about the corruption and slothfulness of the government in prosecuting the culprits at meetings they hold at prestigious venues or through letters written to the newspapers.
People living below the income of $1 per day need to know about The Show Me The Money. They need help to know why their roads are not being repaired. They need to know why the government schools are not being built and why they do not have VCT or ART centers in their communities. They need to know why they lack running water and sanitation facilities. These people need to know about the governments’ commitment to halve poverty by the year 2015 and the vision to make Zambia a middle income class by the year 2030.
The ordinary Zambian is not passive. He is kept ignorant by the government about his responsibilities and his rights. The civil society community is spending too many resources on the middle income group, people who know what they ought to do but are afraid or lazy to do anything about it. The church serving the middle income class must take the role of empowering the church serving in poor communities on the facts about the Show Me The Money campaign and about their responsibilities in holding the government responsible to deliver social services and what corruption is doing to deter the delivery of these services. A church serving in the poor communities which is knowledgeable about the peoples’ rights can mobilize the millions of people living in poverty for action. When the church does this with the compassion and love of Christ its action may also lead to spiritual harvest.
