Maravi

Rupiah is a liar

Rupiah is a liar
Written by Editor

It is not something new for Rupiah Banda to say that he will ensure that The Post is closed. Rupiah and his friends declared during last October’s elections that when they come to power, they would close The Post. So what is new in Rupiah’s declaration?

Probably the only new thing about this threat is that Rupiah is saying in public what they have been discussing and what he has been saying through his agents.

We said the other day that Rupiah and his friends have vowed that they will ensure that The Post is closed before the 2011 election because they don’t like its scrutiny. This is the kind of information they have been peddling for a long time now. And Rupiah in what could have been an unguarded moment has told the whole country that he is determined to deal with The Post. He will try to do this regardless of what the facts on the ground say.

We are not surprised that he has joined those who tell lies about us to justify their hatred. What have we done against Rupiah? We have a job and that is to inform our people. We will continue to expose corruption, abuse of office and mis-governance. And the fact that Rupiah jumps on a public platform to issue threats against us will not change what we do. We hate corruption.

Rupiah told the nation that yesterday’s solidarity march was organised by Jeff Kaande. Rupiah said Jeff prevailed on him to have that meeting. The simple question is why? Why was it so important to Jeff for Rupiah to address a meeting at which he issued open threats to us?

It does not take a genius to know that in the last few days, this newspaper as it has done over many years, exposed the corruption of the MMD, and particularly the corruption of Jeff. He was pushing the Ministry of Home Affairs to release money to party cadres. This same Jeff saw nothing wrong with what he did. The closest he came to an apology is saying that the cadres hoodwinked him over the amounts they were owed. The MMD sees nothing wrong with the kind of patronage Jeff’s behaviour exhibited. It is clear today that even Rupiah sees nothing wrong with what Jeff did. He supports it. This is why he entertained Jeff’s idea of a psyching up a mob to denounce us in defence of his wrongs.

Calling The Post names and accusing its editor of crimes he has not committed will not change the fact that what the MMD is engaged in is wrong. We will continue to expose them.

If this is the way they want to run the country, no one should be surprised that they don’t want us around. We are an inconvenience and when they try to hide their filth, we will expose it. That is the role we have chosen to play. Rupiah can’t force us to become politicians. If we wanted to be in politics, we would be there.

Probably Rupiah doesn’t know that even the party – the MMD – he has hijacked today was founded and established with the help of the editor of The Post. And this was at the time when Rupiah was enjoying being in power, defending the one party state of UNIP. The editor of this newspaper is one of the 10 or so people who registered the MMD in late 1990 as a political party. If it was politics we wanted, we would have been in it. We enjoy what we are doing and we think we are making a positive contribution to the governance of our country. And because of what Rupiah is doing, we think we are right. There is nothing difficult about being in politics. If we wanted to, we would do so easily, but this is not our calling. And it is not for Rupiah to tell us what to do. He did not tell the editor of this newspaper in 1990 to join forces with others and destroy the one party state of Rupiah and his friends in UNIP. Rupiah really has a UNIP one party state mentality and cannot accept that there are people who hold different views from his own.

Clearly, Rupiah is trying to push us back to the old politics of UNIP. And we are not the only ones he is threatening. Look at the way he is threatening his fellow MMD leaders with dismissals and vetoes. He now wants to bring the infamous UNIP vetoes to MMD. Well, these will be matters for those in MMD to deal with the way they want.

It does not surprise us that Rupiah can openly and without shame tell so many lies about us.

One who tells lies is a liar. There is no other description of such a person. Rupiah yesterday told the nation lies that The Post borrowed US $30 million from state institutions. He also went on to say Post editor Fred M’membe was not paying tax to government. This is also a lie by this same liar.

The Post has never borrowed any money from any state institution of any description. And the editor of this newspaper does not owe any tax authority or any other entity or individual any money.

Probably out of dishonesty, hate, anger, malice and a refusal to be held accountable, Rupiah has difficulties distinguishing between Zambian Airways that has or had dealings with state-owned institutions and owes these entities some money. But even then, the indebtedness does not come to US $30 million. Rupiah is lying.

Rupiah also doesn’t seem to be able to distinguish between The Post as a limited liability company and M’membe.

It cannot be denied, and this has been stated publicly, that The Post holds 30 per cent of the shares of Zambian Airways acquired in late 2007 for a consideration of K16.5 billion (at today’s exchange rate). The liabilities or obligations of Zambian Airways are not of The Post and they were not even contracted by The Post. If Rupiah was an honest man, we would have told him to go and check with the state institutions that he controls and see when their business with Zambian Airways was concluded. He will realise that for most of that, The Post was not a member of Zambian Airways. In saying this, we do not mean in any way that those who contracted business between Zambian Airways and those state entities did anything wrong. If this was the case, we would have not invested in Zambian Airways. We sincerely believe those who represented Zambian Airways and the state institutions did nothing wrong. And any independent, fair and objective investigation is likely to come to that conclusion.

As for the insinuation that M’membe does not pay taxes, if Rupiah really means this, it is sad that an entire president of the country can single out an ordinary citizen for victimisation on a false charge. The tax position of the editor of this newspaper is very much in order; he does not owe any tax authority or state institution anything. Probably, Rupiah out of malice or ignorance or both has confused M’membe with The Post. The Post, like any other company, including Rupiah’s own companies, will always have outstanding obligations with the tax authorities as long as they continue in operation. The Post pays taxes every month, and very huge amounts for that matter running in hundreds of millions of kwacha. And these are facts Rupiah can check for himself.

We have avoided politicising the tax affairs of any company or individual in this country. The nature of our work enables us to access or come across a lot of information about people and organisations, including their tax affairs. We have always had information on the tax position of companies in which Rupiah has an interest. And even people very close to Rupiah know that we are in the possession of such information, but we don’t think it should be for public consumption. But if Rupiah wants the tax affairs of every individual and entity in this country to be open for discussion and for political propaganda, let him say so and we will table our tax affairs and his for public scrutiny and discussion.

But this will be unwise for Rupiah to do because it will put Zambia Revenue Authority under a lot of pressure. And if it is Rupiah’s wish to use ZRA to sort out his political opponents, then his ending and those of his friends will be very disastrous.

Rupiah is claiming that he has a letter from former finance minister Ng’andu Magande protecting The Post from paying its debts to state institutions. We challenge Rupiah to produce such letter because The Post has never borrowed any money from any state institution for it to ask Magande for protection. Rupiah is telling lies. Moreover, The Post never seeks such favours from anybody. When The Post is in need of money, it doesn’t go to politicians or state institutions or even donors to look for money. It goes to commercial banks to look for credit. And this is normal for business. So what is Rupiah talking about?

It is dangerous for a president to go around telling lies about ordinary citizens and companies he doesn’t like. Rupiah is deliberately maligning M’membe and The Post. It is stupid for a president to pick up street rumours and treat them as facts. A president should check his facts before he opens his mouth because it is very dangerous for the President to attack or insult other people unjustifiably. We say this because this opens him up to similar attacks. Rupiah has called us everything and he has accused us of everything that is not based on facts. We deserve every right to hit back. Anyway, this is what happens when people are blinded by greed and vanity.

And today the police, the Anti Corruption Commission and the Drug Enforcement Commission announced that they are going to investigate the affairs of Zambian Airways. We welcome this. But we wonder of what value it will be because their boss, their commander in chief Rupiah has already made up his mind on who the blame for what they are going to investigate falls. Rupiah puts squarely the blame on The Post. He has already found us guilty of wrongdoing as shareholders in Zambian Airways. Rupiah has decided that somebody has stolen money even without any investigation.

And this is what makes us uncomfortable with any probe that is under institutions or individuals under the control of Rupiah because he is not an honest and fair-minded person. If the commander in chief of the police, the ACC and DEC has already found us guilty, what fairness can we expect from these institutions? We do not say they are no good people in these institutions – far from it. What we are saying is that the police, ACC and DEC have been put in a very awkward position by Rupiah.

But whatever investigations are carried out, and by whoever, it will not be possible for anyone to find any wrongdoing in the dealings of Zambian Airways by The Post or any of its directors, shareholders or employees. And this we can state with utmost confidence and sincerity. And even Rupiah and his friends know that, but it is a truth that doesn’t suit their propaganda against us. And it is for this reason that we are ready to have the affairs of Zambian Airways investigated in the most transparent and broadest way possible. It is really stupid for anyone to band around figures of US $30 million and claim The Post owes this to state institutions when it has not borrowed even one cent from any state institution. This shows the shallowness, the vindictiveness, the maliciousness, the dishonesty of Rupiah. He can manage to do all sorts of things to us, but what he will never manage is to remove from the face of this country the issues, the ideas, the principles we have been advancing because with or without us, these will always remain relevant to our people.

Threats to close us will never change the way we report.

Labels: RUPIAH BANDA, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 9:12 AM