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(THE TIMES) Magistrate demands payment records

Magistrate demands payment records
By Times Reporter

A LUSAKA magistrate’s court yesterday ordered the State to avail the defence team with original payment authority documents in the case in which MMD national secretary, Katele Kalumba and six others are accused of corrupt practices.

Kalumba is jointly charged with former ministry of Finance permanent secretary, Stella Chibanda, former secretary to the treasury, Benjamin Mweene, former chief economist, Bede Mpande, former director of budget, Boniface Nonde and Access Financial Services (AFS), Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu.

They are all accused of signing, facilitating and authorising the release of money from the Zambia National Commercial Bank (ZNCB) ZAMTROP account, resulting in overpayments to Wilbern Incorporated and Systems Innovation Contracts.

Principal resident magistrate, Edward Musona, ordered the State to avail original copies of payment authority documents produced by a State witness, Fabian Hara 45, an accountant from the Bank of Zambia (BoZ), after the defence objected to the production of photocopies as evidence in court.

The documents indicated that a total of US$40 million was authorised to be paid to Wilbern Incorporated and Systems Innovation Limited, two American based companies, between 1996 and 2001 from the ministry of Finance and Planning.

Leading the submissions, one of the defence lawyer, Vincent Malambo, submitted that the documents were not admissible in evidence because they did not fall under any exceptional rules.

Mr Malambo said the documents from BoZ were not public documents and therefore not the best evidence to be produced in court.

But State prosecutor, Mutembo Nchito, argued that the documents were authenticated and had been brought by the witness, and therefore it could not be said that a certified copy could not be produced as evidence.

In his ruling, Mr Musona ordered the State to avail the defence team with original copies and further observed that the State had been causing unnecessary adjournments, which had resulted in delay hearing of trial.

He said he could not allow a succession of adjournments over the same documents as they were causing unnecessary adjournments. The State later availed original copies of the documents.

And in cross examination by another defence lawyer, Nicholas Chanda, Mr Hara said Government owed a total of $33 million to Wilbern Incorporated and Systems Innovations for security upgrades installed at several strategic departments.

Labels: CORRUPTION, COURTS, KATELE KALUMBA

posted by MrK @ 5:33 PM