Desperate times

The decision by the government to handover the so called cctv footage of meetings between former president Joyce Banda and Cashgate suspect Oswald Lutepo is ridiculously bizarre and smacks of desperation. The whole country knows that it’s not long since Lutepo granted his rather underwhelming interview to Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS), implicating Joyce Banda in Cashgate.
He was ignored by almost everyone else including top prosecutor Mary Kachale. Apart from the DPP led administration, MBC, which by the way is now back to its DPP-old-self, went into an overdrive. Repeating the interview and accompanying it by a commentary of sorts from the usual suspects. The administration was not done, it would appear. On Thursday, government spokesperson released a statement informing the country of the handover of the cctv footage to the graft-busting body. This would have been funny were it not so tragic.
Look, when Lutepo made his allegations to ZBS from his ‘hideout’, the Banda camp was quick to see the hand of the DPP regime in it all. It was a smear campaign orchestrated by those who didn’t wish her well, her aides said. Am not sure how many Malawians believed Banda at the time, but am afraid this misstep by government begins to lend credence to the theory that Lutepo is being used by the DPP to implicate Banda in Cashgate at all costs.
For starters, Malawians would want to believe that they have able sleuths at the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB). They should have talked to Lutepo by the time of his interview to ZBS to get hold of whatever information he had and was willing to give up. If, inexplicably, it somehow omitted to do this, then of course there was the interview itself in which Lutepo himself mentioned the so called cctv footage.
Surely, if ACB thought there was any substance to Lutepo’s story, shouldn’t it have immediately called for the footage from State House to have it analysed? Why would the need for the footage seem so pressing to the government, an obvious interested party, and not to the investigators themselves?
Let us not kid ourselves. For so long, the State law enforcement machinery in this country has been seen as a convenient tool for those in power to crush their enemies, real or imagined. This latest cctv footage stunt does nothing to shake off this sordid image. The law could not have been clearer.
The ACB is to carry out its mandate independent of the direction of anybody and especially that of government. One wonders what exactly the government wants the ACB to do with the footage in this case. Will the ACB be left alone to analyse and assess the value of this footage, if any? Can the country really trust the ACB to professionally come to a conclusion different from that of the government about the utility of the footage?
Because in all fairness, all that government has done, despite its half-hearted and sheepish protestations to the contrary, is to accuse Banda of involvement in Cashgate. How realistic is it for the nation to expect ACB to form a contrary opinion on the matter?
In just one stroke of sheer irresponsibility, the government has undermined the credibility of any prospective investigation into Banda’s role in the Cashgate. Any move by the law enforcement machinery against her will be seen as nothing more than pandering to the whims of the DPP led administration.
Let us not be in any doubt here. It’s in Banda and the entire nation’s interest for her role in Cashgate to be exhaustively inquired into.
If the evidence leads our sleuths to the conclusion that she was involved, then she just like everyone else involved, must be charged and given her day in a court of law. But this should done properly. ACB and the Police must be left alone to do its work without anyone trying to puppeteer them into taking out threats from the political theatre. Not only is it the case that such kind of antics have never worked in the past, but they are also a waste of precious and limited resources.
At the end of the day, it is the already squeezed taxpayer who has to dig deeper into his rather shallow pocket to compensate people victimised by apoliticised law enforcement machinery.
We can’t keep doing the very same wrong things and hope for right results. At least not this time. The stakes are way too high.