It pains me to realize that all of a sudden we have woken up and behaving as if we are angels in our own right. Ken Lipenga might have made a mistake and the blame is being heaped on him. But why should we ignore the fact that what MRA did has been part of our rotten system? Do we clean the system by firing people anyhow or restructuring it so that it automatically guides those who are put to serve in various roles?

For years, we have allowed the Executive arm of government to have direct control over the revenue collecting institution. It is a known fact that upon the resignation or firing of Dr Lipenga, President Joyce Banda, using powers vested in her, will appoint another person in his place. She might as well go further to replace Lloyd Muhara at MRA.

The new Finance Minister and the new MRA Chief will have their own working relationship but trust me, President Joyce Banda will have the final say on how the two officers should execute their duties.

It looks easy for the President because she is still operating on public sympathy thus her regime seems to be accommodating and open. Wait up until things start hotting up, you will see a regime that will flex its muscles and use their powers to manipulate, again, the weak systems that we have in place.

My last words, let’s create a revenue collection body that will directly be answerable to Parliament only so that we stop this malpractice of the Head of State having too much powers to determine what should happen with our revenues.

Source: http://dalitsoanddemocracy.blogspot.com/2012/05/systems-not-ken-lipenga-should-go.html