Maravi

Nawakwi's cooperation cheers Task Force

Nawakwi's cooperation cheers Task Force
By Maluba Jere and Abigail Chaponda
Thursday June 05, 2008 [04:00]

THE Task Force on Corruption has said Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) president Edith Nawakwi cooperated when she was summoned for questioning over the Carlington Sales maize deal last week. Task Force public relations officer Victor Makayi said the unit was happy with the way Nawakwi responded to the interview and that a formal statement was recorded from her.

"Ms Nawakwi came here last week Thursday, that was May 29 and she was very cooperative and we have since recorded a formal statement from her," he said.

Makayi explained that it was the discretion of the investigating officer to decide which statement needed to be recorded from the person being interviewed depending on the circumstances.

"The issue is that every investigation is carried out by a specific officer and depending on how he looks at the issue, decides what statement to record from the suspect," he said.

Makayi also said since the information gathered from the interviews would be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), he would decide whether there was any need to record a warn and caution statement.

"The only difference in the interviews between Nawakwi and former president Frederick Chiluba is that a warn and caution statement was recorded from Chiluba while a formal statement was recorded from the others," he said.

Makayi also said the Task Force was optimistic with the information gathered so far from interviews conducted in the Carlington maize saga investigations.

He said important things had come up and that it was now up to the DPP to recommend the next step of action.

"We are making progress in the investigations and we are happy that we've talked to almost all the people we wanted," said Makayi. "What we are doing now is putting all the information together for the DPP to peruse through, after he does that, he will give guidance on the way forward.

Depending on the information we've gathered, the DPP will determine whether it's a prosecutable case or will tell us which areas we should have covered.

"What we are trying to establish is where the money is, who benefited from it and how we can get it back. US$7 million is a lot of money for someone to get away with. "

The Task Force is investigating the case of Canadian commodity supplier, Carlington Sales Company, following an agreement with the Republic of Zambia in 1997/98 for the supply of maize to Zambia in the extent of US$24 million.

The government transferred the money in the extent of US$7.8 million towards this contract but not a single bag of maize was ever delivered and a loss of public funds remains incurred.

The Task Force has so far interviewed Chiluba, Finance Bank chairman Rahjan Mahtani and recently Nawakwi over the matter.

Labels: CARLINGTON MAIZE DEAL, CORRUPTION, EDITH NAWAKWI, TASK FORCE

posted by MrK @ 5:09 PM