Maravi

George, Dora are not making sense

George, Dora are not making sense
Written by Editor

It is said that the mark of a good politician is the ability to understand the context in which they are operating and act accordingly. After what we have been through with George Kunda over the nolle prosequi they had granted their criminal friend Kashiwa Bulaya, one would expect George to have learnt something. But this doesn’t seem to be the case. George is repeating the same lies he told just over three years ago. He is back to the same silly gimmicks he performed in the Bulaya nolle.

Three years ago, this same George claimed there was no strong evidence to convict and accordingly, as a matter of public interest, he had directed the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Chalwe Mchenga to enter a nolle and stop the prosecution of Bulaya.

When The Post broke the story and said that the government had interfered in the prosecution of Bulaya, there were denials and many accusations were heaped on The Post. We were accused of being anti-government, anti-Mwanawasa, we were said to be hateful of George. In short, we were called all sorts of names and accused of all sorts of things.

To try and prove the baseless and malicious accusations that George and his friends in government were heaping on us, they issued a statement in which they said we had got it all wrong. They had acted according to the law. To try and protect themselves and to shield their wrongdoing, they accused the prosecutor of breaching the Constitution by disregarding the DPP. They said the DPP had instructed the prosecutor to stop the case but the DPP was ignored.

This matter ended up with the Law Association of Zambia which cleared the prosecutor and found that George may have interfered with the operations of the DPP. To this day, George has refused to make public the contents of an opinion written by Caroline Sokoni who was DPP before Mchenga in which she disagreed with George’s attempt to unjustifiably grant Bulaya a nolle.

George lied to the nation then and he has chosen to lie again by being economical with the truth. It is unfortunate that George does not seem to have problems with destroying the professional standing of his fellow lawyers.

With the Bulaya debacle, George did a lot of damage to the professional standing of Mchenga. He also dragged in the then solicitor general Sunday Nkonde.

George’s wrong advice did not leave Levy Mwanawasa unscathed. Levy was humiliated over the Bulaya nolle because of George’s foolish advice. Instead of being honest with the Zambian people, George seems to believe in sophistry, which is the evil art of trying to use clever sounding arguments to persuade people that something is true when it is false.

He has no shame in standing up and making an argument that he really knows to be wrong. This is what he did for Levy in the Bulaya saga. And this is what he is today doing for Rupiah Banda in the Dora Siliya scam.

Three years ago, instead of accepting that they had done wrong, George and others in government chose to blame the prosecutor and The Post. Today, in much the same way, George is at it again. This time he has joined those who are insinuating that Attorney General Mumba Malila did something wrong. And Malila is being treated in the same way George treated Sokoni.

He is also using Solicitor General Dominic Sichinga in the same way he used Mchenga and Nkonde in defending that corrupt nolle they had granted their friend Bulaya. But where is Bulaya today? The magistrate court found him guilty of corruption on every count and grabbed all his ill-gotten property. Bulaya appealed to the High Court. Here again, he was still found guilty and he is today in jail.

But George said that there was no evidence and convinced Mchenga to personally go to court and enter a nolle in favour of Bulaya without the knowledge of the prosecutors who were handling the case. George had Mchenga sneak into court and stop the case.
If they had been allowed to have their way, that criminal Bulaya would today be enjoying the money he stole from the Zambian people and continuing to abuse them.

What is George saying today about Bulaya? Has he had the common decency to admit that he tried to mislead the public because of a silly political scheme?
George has no credibility on matters of this nature. His attempt to defend Dora is no different from the ill-fated attempt to free Bulaya from prosecution.

And yesterday, we saw George taking public platform trying to defend what cannot be defended. We have said before and we will say again, no amount of obfuscation – attempting to make matters more complicated than they are - will help George and Dora.

Dora stood in Parliament and tried to cheat. And today, George is trying to cheat the Zambian people. Like Dora, George is deliberately not answering the main issues but clinging to many irrelevancies.

There are many questions and lies told by Dora which George has deliberately decided to ignore. George is trying to educate us on what a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is. Why is he not telling us what the particular MoU signed by Dora is?

Instead of treating us to general legal slogans, George should tell us whether the MoU Dora signed is non-binding. Nobody asked what an MoU is. We are interested to know what obligations the government has been committed to by Dora’s signature on the RP Capital MoU.

Can George honestly say that the document Dora signed is non-binding, as she told Parliament last week? Can George tell us whether his colleague told Parliament the truth? These are the issues. Not what is an MoU. Call it whatever name you like, a contract is a contract.

Second, George has deliberately not told us whether this MoU went through any tender process. In other words, did the Ministry of Communications and Transport tender committee sit to consider the offer for service from RP Capital? Did the permanent secretary and his committee members authorise this transaction? These are the issues.

What is the role of a minister in procurement of goods and services for the government? Is there one section in the procurement Act No. 12 of 2008 which allows a minister to be a procurement officer?

George’s defence of Dora is cheap, empty and not well thought out – it is a desperate one and an exercise in futility. In trying to justify not following tender processes, Dora told Parliament that she followed a circular of 2009 which was effective on 12th December 2008. Why the backdating? Why the retroactivity?
We went to learn the law so that we can understand these things for ourselves. George and Dora are not making sense.

Why has George not explained about this retroactive circular? What were they trying to cover up? What were they trying to correct or normalise?

George is also trying to create a legal fiction that Dora’s wrongdoings were authorised by the Solicitor General. We would be very surprised if the Solicitor General advised Dora not to follow tender procedures. This is the issue. Who told Dora to constitute herself into a tender committee? Which lawyer in the Ministry of Justice gave such advice?

George also said that the Solicitor General gave authority and communicated with the Ministry of Communications and Transport on November 25 and December 5, 2008. What George does not explain is why the Attorney General, writing on January 5, 2009, refers to the same Solicitor General’s letter of December 5, 2008 and concludes that Dora had not followed the advice rendered.

It is not surprising that George does not explain how Dora followed legal advice from the Attorney General’s chambers because she did not.

George also says that the value of this RP Capital MoU is US $50,000. This is simply a lie. Clause 3 of this MoU provides for fees and reimbursable costs. It provides that GRZ shall reimburse RP Capital expenses for air tickets, accommodation, sundries, report production and communication charges. The only place where the MoU refers to the US $50,000 is when it says if the costs exceed US $50,000, the government would have to specifically authorise such costs.

The fees that Dora has agreed to is to US $2 million or five percent of the sale proceeds, whichever is higher. The minimum that RP Capital will be paid here is US $2 million.

George also said that there is no final agreement until they go to Cabinet. But this is not anywhere in the agreement. There is no Cabinet mentioned anywhere. Clause 3.8 says: “The parties represent that they have the authority and power to enter into this MoU and fulfill its obligations hereunder.”

If there is still a Cabinet decision to come, why did Dora sign an agreement that says she has the power to bind government?

Clause 6.7 provides: “This MoU sets out the entire agreement and understanding between the parties with respect to this subject matter. Neither party has entered into this MoU in reliance upon any representation, warranty or undertaking of the other party which is not expressly set out or referred to in this MoU.”

The agreement which George says is still subject of Cabinet approval speaks for itself. It sets out the entire agreement and understanding between the parties. And this explains why the Attorney General opposed this MoU.

Even if we were to be so kind as to accept George’s nonsensical argument that Cabinet will make the final decision, it does not change things much because obligations under this MoU will still have to be met. If Zamtel is privatised even after this MoU has been annulled, RP Capital could still claim payment.

Clause 6.5 of the MoU provides that: “The parties agree that (i) the obligation of GRZ to reimburse the expenses of RP; (ii) the obligation of GRZ to pay transaction fees…(iv) section 6.2; and (v) clause 7 (governing law and settlement of disputes) hereof shall survive the expiration or termination of this MoU.”
Why is George trying to lie?

George is no better than Dora who yesterday told the press that she had not cancelled the tender process for the supply of radar equipment to National Airports Corporation.

Such lies are difficult to understand. Dora is saying this when we have published information about her instructions to stop the process. On December 11, 2008 Dora wrote to the director general of the tender authority in which she informed him that:

“I have instructed the procurement department at my ministry to immediately suspend the current tender so as to restore confidence in the process…As you are aware, I gave an assurance of the floor of Parliament that we had identified a company to provide a tender to the Zambian government and it was on that basis that we requested for funds from Ministry of Finance…”

Why did Dora suspend the procurement process? Why is she denying having done this today? Which company had Dora identified to provide a tender as she stated in her letter? And how could she have identified a company before the commencement of the tender process? Is this why SELEX is coming with supposedly free services?

And has Dora forgotten that on January 5, 2009 she wrote an internal memorandum to her permanent secretary stating: “I wish to make reference to the above subject matter, your confidential letter of 5th December 2008 and my letter addressed to the director general at Tender Board and copied to you.

“I wish to restate my instruction that the bid be redone and only MANUFACTURERS of radars be invited to bid. In this way, no middlemen will be entertained and Government will be assured of money well spent and reliable follow up service. It will be prudent if this is done immediately as I communicated with the ZNTB.”

In this memo, as in the letter of December 11, 2008 to the director general of the Zambia National Tender Board, Dora gave the reason for cancelling the tender as the need to have manufacturers of radar systems to participate. Today, Dora says she never stopped the process but that she received a number of complaints which were also sent to the Anti-Corruption Commission and some of the allegations were levelled against officers in her ministry.

Dora is getting in the habit of smearing filth on others whenever she is in a tight corner. What is she saying? Which officers were corrupt in her ministry? Her permanent secretary? The directors? And is Dora the only clean person in the ministry?

When did she report this corruption to the ACC and what has happened? Dora should learn to dance to her own music and not throw filth on everybody and anybody when she fails to explain her misdeeds.

This SELEX transaction, like the RP Capital transaction, stinks. It is an attempt to give a company a contract to supply a radar system without going through a tender process. If SELEX are coming to fix the radar for free, as they say, will they also supply spares for free for five years? What about the need for upgrade?

The question that also arises is: Is SELEX not the same company that in February last year said this radar equipment was obsolete and should be replaced at a cost of Euro 13.7 million (about K100 billion)? What has changed? Since when did SELEX become a charity or a donor to Zambia? Where else have they offered such a deal? Why did the deal come after the Zambia National Tender Board had awarded the tender to another manufacturer?

Dora’s stories do not add up. There are so many questions that can be asked and pages and pages of editorial comments can be written. We have to stop here. We will still have to write about this issue tomorrow.

Labels: DORA SILIYA, GEORGE KUNDA

posted by MrK @ 8:13 PM