Legal Aspects of Combating Corruption: The Case of Zambia
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Legal Aspects of Combating Corruption: The Case of Zambia By Ken ...

Chapter 2:  Conceptual Issues in Definitions of Corruption and Good Governance
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The Anti-Corruption Commission Act 1996 distinguishes the term corrupt from the words casual gift. According to Section 3 of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act 1996, a ‘casual gift’ is ‘any conventional hospitality on a modest scale or unsolicited gift of modest value offered to a person in recognition or appreciation of that person’s services, or as a gesture of goodwill towards that person and includes any inexpensive seasonal gift offered to staff or associates by public and private bodies or private individuals on festive or other special occasions, which is not in any way connected with the performance of a person’s official duty so as to constitute an offence under Part IV.’ Part IV of the Anti-Corruption Commission Act 1996 lists down offences of corrupt practices as including the following:

29(1) Any public officer who, by himself, or by or in conjunction with any other person, corruptly solicits, accepts or obtains, or agrees to accept or attempts to receive or obtain, from any person for himself or for any other person, any gratification as an inducement or reward for doing or forbearing to do, or for having done or forborne to do, anything in relation to any matter of transaction, actual or proposed, with which any public body is or may be concerned, shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) Any person who by himself, or by or in conjunction with any other person corruptly gives, promises or offers any gratification to any public officer, whether for the benefit of that public officer or of any other public officer, as an inducement or reward for doing or forbearing to do, anything in relation to any matter or transaction, actual or proposed, with which any public body is or may be concerned, shall be guilty of an offence.47

As a general rule, there are three statutory penalties that can be meted out to a person convicted of a statutory offence of corrupt practices in Zambia.48 These three statutory penalties are as follows49: