Maravi

What are they afraid of?

What are they afraid of?
Written by Editor

IF you start a process in which all the country's values begin to be destroyed, that process is very negative. If you destroy the credibility of very important public institutions like the Bank of Zambia, the Development Bank of Zambia and indeed even law enforcement agencies like the Drug Enforcement Commission, the Anti Corruption Commission and the police, the consequences are terrible.

In their desperation to nail The Post to the cross, Rupiah Banda and his friends are making a big mistake by failing to foresee the consequences of what they are doing and by not doing the right thing to reach the goals and purposes they have proclaimed or predetermined - the destruction of The Post and the crippling of Mutembo Nchito as a public prosecutor in the ongoing corruption cases involving their friend Frederick Chiluba and his tandem of thieves.

If what justice deputy minister Toddy Chilembo said about our right to invite Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants, Law Association of Zambia, Bankers Association of Zambia and other professional bodies, civil society institutions, church organisations and political parties, including the ruling MMD, to check our conduct in relation to Zambian Airways is representative of the advice Rupiah is getting, then the country is in trouble.

We expect the government to receive the best legal advice and not to be misled into taking positions that do not make any sense at all and are full of nothing but malice. We understand that Chilembo is speaking for his boss George Kunda. But that does not exempt him from logic and common sense. Why should a government minister stop shareholders and directors of a private company from inviting whoever they want to investigate, analyse and query the way in which their company had been conducting its business or dealings?

The Post has every legal and moral right to investigate the way Zambian Airways affairs were being conducted on its behalf. It is only logical that when allegations are raised or insinuations are made about a company in which one has an interest, one should try to find out the truth about what was done on his behalf. There is nothing wrong with The Post inviting independent professional institutions to check and investigate the allegations being made against a company in which it has an interest and against the directors of that company.

Chilembo cannot tell The Post when not to do this. The Post and Zambian Airways are private companies - they are not parastatals - and those who hold shares in them and have got control of these companies have every right to ensure that they conduct their business in an efficient, effective, orderly and legal manner. Whenever allegations are raised on this score, it is the responsibility of the shareholders to check and determine what the true position is and take appropriate measures. No one has the right - legal or otherwise - to stop them from doing so. And as such the invitation made by The Post to these institutions will be effected unabated. The Post has accordingly instructed the management of Zambian Airways to provide these institutions with all the necessary information and explanation pertaining to the allegations and insinuations being made by Rupiah and his friends.

Any fair-minded person would agree that every time Zambian Airways has been discussed in Parliament, insinuations of wrongdoing have been made against The Post. These insinuations have also extended to the discussion of the Zamtel/RP Capital saga in Parliament. In fact, we have been called criminals. One very stupid member of parliament, Raphael Muyanda, even referred to the editor of The Post as the most dangerous criminal. These insinuations are deliberately being made in Parliament because the makers know that we cannot defend ourselves in Parliament because we have no right to be heard. And yet these baseless allegations and insinuations are given the widest publication to discredit us.

Outside Parliament, they are using state institutions under their control - which we have no control over - to continue their allegations and insinuations. Only yesterday, correspondence allegedly passing between BoZ and DBZ was publicised in the state-owned and government-controlled Sunday Times. It was clear for anybody to see that the intention was malicious. We say this because although they claim that the letter from BoZ to DBZ dealt with three companies, they saw it fit to only talk about Zambian Airways to continue the ploy of showing that Zambian Airways did something wrong. Yet these were the same people who were the other week complaining of leakages of official documents from state institutions. We wonder what they would do tomorrow if we published everything that we have on BoZ's correspondence with banks operating in this country. Are they going to blame us for the runs that will be unleashed on some banks? We put this challenge to them!

This seems to be a new chapter in the operations of BoZ. We have never known BoZ to operate in this manner. BoZ, to this very day, has never publicised its findings on the collapse of Meridian Bank. Probably this is the Rupiah way of doing business. But they are creating for themselves a very dangerous precedent. And as a newspaper, we cannot complain about this. Let them leak and the tap will never close until the tanks of BoZ run dry, until all the banks drown because of leakages. All this is being done by Rupiah and his friends simply to fix The Post. What type of shortsightedness is this? What type of stupidity is this? What type of destructiveness is this? The other day Rupiah was talking about anarchy in the leaking of the Attorney General's letters to Dora Siliya; that was nothing - the real anarchy is what they are doing in leaking communications of the Central Bank to the state media. They are unleashing a process that they will not be able to stop and that which will submerge them. Anyway, fools commit suicide to spite others - they are always a danger unto themselves.

If the government can leak documents about the operations of the Central Bank, why should we not invite people to look at the operations of Zambian Airways? And with this type of behaviour, what credibility can people place on their investigations against us? Probably this is why they don't want anybody other than themselves to know and have a say on what truly happened with Zambian Airways' dealings with DBZ and National Airports Corporation.

We have not stopped Rupiah and his friends and the state agencies under their control from probing the affairs of Zambian Airways. Why should Chilembo try to stop us from carrying out our own enquiry, as investors in Zambian Airways, to determine the truth about this airline's dealings? Why should we as shareholders of Zambian Airways wait to be told what happened in the way the airline was conducting its affairs by Rupiah and his friends? The investigations Rupiah and his friends are conducting on Zambian Airways are for their own purposes to meet their own interests.

If people are calling us dangerous criminals, what is wrong with inviting fair-minded members of society to come and check on our activities?

Anyway, we know that Rupiah and his friends are trying to use Zambian Airways as an excuse to cleanse certain institutions and create jobs for their relatives and friends. We know that they want to use this as a pretext to remove Dr Abraham Mwenda as managing director of DBZ so that they can give the job to their own people. They know very well the fact that Dr Mwenda was not even at DBZ, was not even in this country, when this bank joined the Investrust Bank-led syndicate to finance Zambian Airways. But we are not surprised.

The fact that the DBZ loan was above board and done at arms length through Investrust Bank is an inconvenient truth. It does not help their conspiracy theories.

These friends of ours are not interested in the truth. They don't want to investigate and find the truth. They want to continue maligning us without us being able to defend ourselves by keeping a monopoly on the platforms and information to be used against us.

If we have done wrong things, let other people come and prove also. It will be helpful. We will have no reason to cry foul. If the truth motive of their investigation, Chilembo would not say what he is saying.

We will therefore not stop the independent investigations that we have invited - with or without the cooperation of the state agencies or institutions involved.

Labels: MUTEMBO NCHITO, THE POST, ZAMBIAN AIRWAYS

posted by MrK @ 5:00 AM