BY BOOKER MATEMVU
The whole Facebook is full of that’s the man we know! Are you serious? Relieving two illustrious professionals of their positions is the change you were looking for? Well, I am disappointed.
James Chiusiwa was responsible for approving that resources are made available to all stakeholders including the Ministry of Health because we were and are in a state of disaster due to Covid. He did just that on time. Is anybody saying otherwise?
The money was not stolen at source. It went out and people connived to pilfer it. He had a responsibility to account for those resources having received the aggregated expenditure reports. The reports were not forth coming because the money had been eaten by rodents. Now, you have fired him!
Worse still, you have directed that all Heads of Clusters that haven’t fully accounted for the Covid funds be moved or simply put transferred. Really? They have failed to account for how they spent these resources and all you do is transfer them elsewhere?
A new head comes in and washes his hands before us saying, “I wasn’t here when it happened! Give me a chance to work on things.” And before we know it, nobody has accounted for those resources and it’s 2025 and we will have moved on from this rot to another rot.
Meanwhile, we have a sacrificial lamb in James Chiusiwa.Now, when APM made John Phuka Co-chair of the Covid Task Force, it was because he knew that there was need for political leadership.
The politicians usually mess up or stand in the way of operations for political expedience and it only takes a politician to move others out of the way.
Therefore, as co-chair, you.can blame him for technical failure not leadership. The leadership was provided by the Minister of Health who, I earlier intimated, faced with internal mutiny, the President can not touch.
So, again, Dr John Phuka became another proverbial sacrificial lamb.
James Chiusiwa and John Phuka had set out to serve their country koma apapa mwangowaipitsira CV basi.
This is the era of directives. Its really hard to take people away from their usual habbits. When some1 is used to fire spiritual members at willy nilly for breaching the laws no 1 can stop them from that habbit.
Most of the time money is stolen at the District council level. Last time Auditor General uncovered a K40bn gap which could not be substantiated with documents. Whilst the controlling officers may have tracked the funds usage I believe the for happened at Director of Finance (DOF) level at district councils. Suspend them too! Also ask people in this districts to whistle blow any suspicious or sudden wealth creation by the govt employees.