Five civil society groups want officials' assets made public, say only 15 percent of companies reveal their true owners

Five civil society organisations have asked the government to make public officials declare their assets openly, and to link those declarations to records of who really owns the companies behind government contracts. The demand comes in a joint position paper released in Lusaka on Tuesday by the Alliance for Community Action, Chapter One Foundation, the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection, the LCK Freedom Foundation and Transparency International Zambia. The paper is attributed to Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection Executive Director Father Daniel Mwamba Mutale. Their argument is that asset declarations on their own are not enough if an official can sit behind a company. "Without beneficial ownership transparency, public officials can hide companies that bid for government contracts," the coalition said, which leaves the public unable to tell whether a contract was awarded on value for money or on political connection. ## What the law already requires The Companies Act No. 10 of 2017, as amended by Act No. 2 of 2020, defines beneficial ownership and created a central register of true company owners at the Patents and Companies Registration Agency. Section 12(3)(e), through Form 21, requires companies to state who really owns them. The coalition says the law has two holes. It sets no specific penalty for a company that does not disclose, so authorities fall back on the general offences in Sections 372 and 373. And although Section 124(1) requires the registrar to verify ownership information before registration, the coalition says the agency relies on what is written on the application form, which leaves the register full of unreliable entries. Compliance among registered companies is estimated at about 15 percent. The coalition puts that down to limited awareness of the requirement, the absence of specific sanctions and weak verification. ## What they want changed The paper asks for asset declarations to be mandatory and public, and to cover all s