Maravi

Kabwe testifies on ZSIS investments

The Post
Saturday May 31, 2008
Kabwe testifies on ZSIS investments
Friday May 30, 2008 [04:00]
Continued from yesterday

Kabwe: We had several clients dealing with us in this similar manner.

The court will recall my reference to a similar arrangement in respect of DG Travel matter that we handled on behalf of another client totally unrelated to the Zambia Security Intelligence Service. Your Honour, even in that instance, we did not ask the client concerned where these funds were coming from and generally, Your Honour, unless you have concerns about the client or suspect what the client maybe doing, financial institutions and banks could not normally make it their business to ask clients where their money is coming from.

In the particular case, Your Honour, of Mr Chungu and the Zambia Security Intelligence Service, we had no reason whatsoever to doubt his credibility occupying the high position in government that he did. Your Honour, it would have been most unlikely that he would have told us anything anyway because when he first approached me, he did make it quite clear that his operations were very private and that me or Access Financial Services Limited could not be privy to unnecessary details about his work.

Sangwa: Now, when did you actually come to know that Zamtrop account was actually an account for Zambia Security Intelligence Service?

Kabwe: Your Honour, this matter started to come to light through newspaper articles, particularly at the time when there was a court case involving the former president of Zambia, Dr Chiluba and The Post Newspaper and some other individuals. Your Honour, as a result of those proceedings, a number of disclosures were made including the identity of the so called Zamtrop account as an account belonging to the Zambia Security Intelligence Service and operated from the London branch of Zambia National Commercial Bank. That is when I recall coming across this Zamtrop name and what it meant.

Sangwa: What kind of services did Mr Chungu request and received from Access?

Kabwe: Your Honour, what Mr Chungu told me was essentially that his service could require establishing investment ventures that could augment the funding support that government was providing and which sometimes was not always adequate.

He wanted Access Financial Services Limited to help him with managing such investment as and when they were identified and to put together the appropriate structures to ensure these investments were managed confidentially.

Sangwa: Where were these investments to be made?
Kabwe: What Mr Chungu told me was that investments would be local.

Sangwa: What kind of investments were made, with regard to local investments?

Kabwe: Your honour, I have already alluded to the issue of Avalon Motors whose assets were converted to Motor City.

Sangwa: Could you tell the court the background to this particular investment?

Kabwe: Your Honour, what I was told by Mr Chungu was that the Zambia Security Intelligence Service was interested in acquiring a business in the motor industry for use by themselves and as a profit making venture.

Your Honour, Mr Chungu and his organisation had identified these investments themselves when newspaper advertisements appeared to the effect that Avalon Motors Limited had been placed in receivership and that the receiver was selling the assets of the company.

Hence Your Honour, Access Financial Services Limited was retained by the Zambia Security Intelligence Service to negotiate the acquisition of Avalon assets on the client’s behalf which is what we did Your Honour and succeeded to put the assets into a new operating entity by the name of Motor City which the client himself had suggested.

Sangwa: What is the status of this company?

Kabwe: I know very little about the status now except that it is one of the assets taken over either by the Task Force or Zambia Security Intelligence Service.
Sangwa: Is this company in existence or it has been liquidated?

Kabwe: I don't know. It is now over six years since I had anything to do with this matter.

Sangwa: Mr. Chungu was DG in Zambia and based in Zambia and the assets he acquired in Zambia. Why is it that the money to pay for the assets he acquired came from abroad?

Kabwe: Your Honour, our only concern was to make sure that our clients funded us for whatever project he wanted us to undertake on his behalf. Your Honour, whether the client, in this case Mr. Chungu, gives us money from abroad or from anywhere in Zambia, it was not our concern. Mr Chungu told me that to fund a particular transaction we were talking about, he would rely on resources he had mobilised from outside Zambia.

It was for that reason Your Honour that I explained to him the route through which he could remit those resources to Access Financial Services Limited which, Your Honour, as I said before was applicable to every other client of ours who wanted to send funds to do their business in Zambia.

Therefore, Your Honour, for us this was an ordinary straight forward matter which complied with the operating system we had already established not for Zambia Security Intelligence Service but for all clients of Access Financial Services Limited whose resources were coming to us from outside Zambia.

There was nothing special about this as far as Access Financial Services was concerned. Our only and simple requirement that we be funded for what we were being asked to perform. How the client, Your Honour, organised his funding was entirely his business and this, Your Honour, is ordinary practice with any other financial institution.

Sangwa: There has been a name of a company that has been frequently talked about by the name of Zamdael, what exactly did you know about this company?

Kabwe: Your Honour, another investment which Mr Chungu wanted to acquire for his organisation was some farm land and housing structures belonging to a company called Zamdael Limited.

Your Honour, as Access Financial Services, we came to learn that this company and this property belonged to a Mr Dale who had wanted to establish a block manufacturing plant at a site in the Kanakantapa area of Lusaka. The property, Your Honour, was partially developed with some housing structures as I indicated earlier and Mr Dale was about to commence business when he was attacked by robbers and therefore, decided to abandon the project and return to Kenya I understand.

Your Honour, Mr Dale after this unfortunate incident decided to appoint an agent to dispose off his investment in Zambia. Your Honour, that agent was called Mr Murray Dewar. It was, Your Honour, Mr Dewar that interested Mr Chungu in the Kanakantapa property belong to Zamdael...
To be continued

Labels: ACCESS FINANCIAL SERVICES, COURTS, ZAMTROP, ZSIS

posted by MrK @ 3:19 PM