STATE HOUSE says all erring contractors and suppliers who participated in the deliberate scheme to defraud the country will be blacklisted and precluded from conducting any business with government.

In a statement, Monday, Presidential Spokesperson Anthony Bwalya said the process of blacklisting would extend to both individuals and the companies they own, control and enjoy a beneficial interest in.

“With the country having been routinely looted through a sustained culture of collusion between government officials and private sector individuals and companies under the previous regime, there is a very clear and definitive directive from the President- that all those who participated in this deliberate scheme to defraud the country will be blacklisted and precluded from conducting any business with government,” he said.

“The process of blacklisting will extend to both individuals and the companies they own, control and/ or enjoy a beneficial interest; unless one is able to demonstrate that they have been conducting business with government in an above board manner.”

Bwalya said there would be consequences for those who engaged in impropriety as a standard way of doing business.

“The message from the President and the new administration is this: there must be, and there will be consequences for those who engage in impropriety as a standard way of doing business. Let it also be emphasised, that the charge against grand corruption will not stop until we entrench a new culture of honesty, transparency, accountability and diligence in the way we serve the Zambian people,” said Bwalya.