Chiluba's 'gifts' to KK's sons attract Task Force
Chiluba's 'gifts' to KK's sons attract Task ForceBy Amos Malupenga and Patson Chilemba
Wednesday December 05, 2007 [03:00]
The Task Force on Corruption will soon institute investigations to ascertain whether or not former president Frederick Chiluba abused public funds when he bought a house and vehicle for Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s children.
In an interview yesterday, Task Force chairperson Max Nkole said there was need for his officers to follow up on Chiluba’s revelations on Monday that he bought a house in South Africa for Kaweche Kaunda and a Pajero for Col Panji Kaunda using public money from the Zamtrop account.
Nkole said he agreed with The Post’s editorial comment yesterday which called for the investigation of Chiluba on this matter and also for the Task Force to repossess the house from Kaweche because it was acquired using public resources.
“Yes, I agree that we need to make follow-ups on such revelations,” Nkole said. “The levels of abuse of office in this country are beyond what Dr Chiluba talked about. There are many such cases which we have been investigating and some of them we have already taken to court.”
Nkole said the Task Force would have to thoroughly investigate the matter because there were cases where Chiluba did something using his discretion.
“Like in this case of Kaweche and Panji, he could have still used his discretion,” Nkole said. “But during the investigations, we will have to look at his status as a president in terms of the civil service; we will also look at the discretion.
We will also have to interpret some acts and weigh that against discretion. After that, we can tell or conclude whether what he did amounts to abuse of office or can fall within his discretion. Where we find that there was abuse, we will take the matter to court.”
Nkole said this would not be the first time for the Task Force to deal with such a cases.
“We have been dealing with such cases all this time,” he said. “Some of them end up in court but others do not. But in this case, I will not be surprised if officers are dispatched to South Africa to check the existence of this house and also to record some statements from Kaweche.”
And information minister Mike Mulongoti said Chiluba’s moral standing is in question until the corruption charges against him are cleared.
Featuring on MUVI TV’s Eyeball-to-Eyeball programme on Monday night, Mulongoti said it was clear that Chiluba had robbed the people of Zambia as revealed in the London judgment.
He said Chiluba should check himself before alleging that the Zambian people were being robbed by the government through the financial irregularities being revealed in the Auditor General’s report.
“You have no moral right to stand up and say that the people of Zambia were robbed and you are named by a court judgment. How about this indictment (London judgment) which is public record?” Mulongoti asked.
“To begin to open cupboards, you must ensure that there are no skeletons because as soon as you open the cupboards, the skeletons will start falling all over.”
Mulongoti urged Chiluba to exercise restraint because there was a court judgment which showed that he participated in the looting of public coffers.
He said it would be important for Chiluba not to continue acting as though he was an ‘angel’ when it came to the issue of corruption.
“The angel veil was taken away when the court pronounced that he participated in taking away the money from the Zambian people. Until this judgment is reversed by another judgment of the courts, it remains a dark cloth on him,” Mulongoti said.
He said Chiluba allowed the ‘cancer’ of corruption to grow when he was in office and did nothing to stop corruption during his tenure of office.
“For him what I would expect is not to say much about it because every time a matter was reported to him, he said ‘bring the evidence’.
There were issues of people who used public money to have private rentals paid for them. The question of people taking government money until it generated interest started in his administration,” Mulongoti said.
He said there was no truth in Chiluba’s insinuations that the government parastatals have been ordered to move their accounts to Finance Bank and to have their insurances with Professional Insurance Corporation. He said some parastatals chose to shift to the two institutions because of the market forces that were at play.
“In liberalisation, you move to the most cost effective company. Now if you look at the interest rates that were being offered by different companies at the time. At the time it became more cost effective to go to private insurance companies,” said Mulongoti.
Mulongoti urged Chiluba to provide cogent evidence rather than just peddling rumours.
Labels: CHILUBA, CORRUPTION, MAX NKOLE, TASK FORCE, ZAMTROP
posted by MrK @ 6:01 AM
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