Maravi

Aaron Chungu refuses to appear before Task Force

Aaron Chungu refuses to appear before Task Force
Written by Chibaula Silwamba
Monday, December 22, 2008 8:40:04 AM

ACCESS Financial Services Limited (AFSL) former director Aaron Chungu has refused to appear before the Task Force on Corruption today, arguing that the institution is not a constitutionally mandated law enforcement agency to serve him with a call out.
And Chungu's colleague, Faustin Kabwe said his lawyers had written to the Task Force on Corruption to regularise the call outs before they could appear before the law enforcement institution.

But Task Force on Corruption spokesperson Victor Makayi said his institution will decide what action to take against Chungu and Kabwe if they do not report themselves for ongoing investigations.

Addressing journalists in Lusaka yesterday, Chungu said he would ignore the call out from the Task Force on Corruption because it was irregular.

“In the past, all the call outs were coming through the police or ACC. That is what they have done professionally in the past so I don't know what is different now.

As long as the call out comes on a Task Force headed paper, I will ignore it. If it comes from ACC or police, those are constitutional offices, I will go there. They have done that in the past,” Chungu said. “What they have used in this instance is irregular. They used a call out on a Task Force headed paper which is irregular.”

Chungu said he and Kabwe received a call out from the Task Force on Corruption to appear before it for the purpose of effecting an arrest on them.

“The call out was first attempted to be served on me on Thursday, 18th December, 2008 when a team of unknown persons came to my residence purporting to be police officers from Woodlands Police Station. When I met them, they stated that they were in fact officers from the Task Force on Corruption and wanted to serve a call out notice on Task Force [on Corruption] headed paper with Task Force stamp,” Chungu explained. “I was extremely disappointed at the unprofessional manner in which these officers were conducting serious matters. It was clear to me that their sole purpose in coming to my house was to cause maximum anguish and embarrassment before my family and workers.”

He said he had asked the officers to serve the call out notice on their lawyers since they [officers] were fully aware that they [Chungu and Kabwe] were represented in all the cases that the Task Force on corruption had brought against them and had already cooperated.

“When the notices were served on our lawyers, we instructed them to seek regularisation of the notices as we are no longer prepared to play to the whims of the political witch-hunt that the Task Force pursues under the cover [of] law enforcement,” Chungu said. “We are prepared, as we have always done, to comply fully with call out notices from constitutionally mandated law enforcement agencies such as the DEC [Drug Enforcement Commission], the ACC [Anti Corruption Commission] and the police and not from the Task Force on Corruption.”

Chungu said time had come to stop the disgraceful habit of the Task Force of parading suspects in public and exposing them to scandal and ridicule even before any investigations were completed and the courts had determined their guilt or innocence.

“This is clearly prejudicial conduct which should not be tolerated in a supposedly democratic country following the rule of law,” Chungu said. “The Task Force conduct is not rule of law but rule by law, which is what went on in Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa.”

Chungu said he had opened his defence in one of his cases currently in court and had, therefore, come to a logical conclusion that the new call out was designed to intimidate him, derail his defence and cow him into submission.

“This I will not do,” vowed Chungu. “Natural justice demands that I deserve a fair hearing in an appropriate environment.”

And Kabwe said he was willing to appear before the Task Force on Corruption provided it regularised the call out.

“I have not met Mr Chungu, unfortunately today, so I don't know in what context exactly he was saying that,” Kabwe said. “But what I am aware of is that our lawyers have written to the Task Force on the call out and asked them to regularise the call out.”

Asked if he will appeared before the Task Force, Kabwe responded: “Obviously, we are being represented by lawyers and the lawyers I know have written to the Task Force to regularise the call out and if that has been corrected of course, we will go…we can't just say no but it has got to be regularised.”

And Makayi said as far as the Task Force was concerned, they were expecting Chungu and Kabwe to appear before it today.

“These are ongoing investigations; we just want to talk to them just like we can call on anyone to come and give us clarification on anything that we are investigating on,” said Makayi.

Labels: AARON CHUNGU, CORRUPTION, TASK FORCE

posted by MrK @ 8:39 AM