Maravi

US $8.5 million claim nonsense

US $8.5 million claim nonsense
Written by Editor

What a web we weave for ourselves when we first practice to deceive! Manipulators have never deserved anybody’s respect or been successful anywhere. Manipulators are like little sailboats which go with the wind and the waves. Manipulation is synonymous with opportunism. Manipulation doesn’t have substance; it doesn’t have roots. Everything - respect, relationships, serious analysis and understanding - is possible among people who are honest with themselves and with others.

Liars do a lot of harm to themselves as much as they do to others. Our nation is in the clutch of liars, deceitful men with no moral sense of responsibility. The foolishness of what is going on in our country is difficult to understand. One wonders why we are expected to accept the nonsense that is being thrown at us by Rupiah Banda, Frederick Chiluba, Chalwe Mchenga and all their minions.

We still cannot believe that somebody calling himself a lawyer, a Director of Public Prosecutions, a state counsel, can say what Mchenga has said about the case of Chiluba. Is Mchenga okay? Is something wrong with him? Is he suffering from diarrhoea of the mouth and constipation of the brain? Is he failing to think? We don’t say these to insult him. But there is something seriously wrong with him, with his reasoning and his talk.

How can a normal person holding the office of Director of Public Prosecutions say that he is not going to appeal because Chiluba had private money in a government account?

We are finding it difficult to understand Mchenga’s reasoning. This is coming on the back of the nonsense being spewed by Chiluba himself who now claims that he had US $8.5 million in a government account and he is going to claim it from the state. In saying what he is saying, Mchenga seems to have accepted this foolish assertion from Chiluba without raising the most basic questions that should be raised. When did Chiluba know that he had private money in a government account?

When did he put it there? Where was the money coming from? Where is its trail because money leaves a trail whenever it moves - there is a debit and credit? What records did Chiluba keep for this money? Where are the receipts or other documents to prove his claim? What were the accounting arrangements between Chiluba and the Zambia intelligence?

There is another set of questions that should be added to these. Why did Chiluba not claim this money before he left State House or indeed why did he not claim this money before the investigations started? Maybe Chiluba suffered from amnesia. He forgot about his money when he was leaving State House.

And for seven months, he could not remember that he had US $8.5 million in the Zamtrop account in London! Is this possible? It’s only possible if he is a billionaire with many more millions of dollars in other accounts elsewhere. We ask this question because Chiluba did not leave State House in a rush; he knew when he was going. There was proper handover between him and Levy Mwanawasa. Chiluba’s immunity was not lifted the day he left State House.

It took seven months before parliament lifted his immunity. He had all the time to claim what was his. In all these seven months, Chiluba made no single attempt to withdraw money from the Zamtrop account or claim anything that was due to him from that account or any other government account or indeed from any government institution. The Zamtrop accounts are there for all to see when the last transactions took place.

Why should Chiluba start claiming his so-called personal money in the Zamtrop account today? Anyway, who wouldn’t make such a claim if the Director of Public Prosecutions is ready to believe and defend such nonsense?

If Mchenga had addressed his mind to these simple questions, he would quickly realise the absurdity of the assertion he is making. But this is what happens when professionals rent their brains to political manipulators who want to use professional offices to justify nonsense. Mchenga’s decision is based on politics, not law. He has become a political animal, a hyena, a jackal in the service of political crooks. And in this way he is not different from his masters; Mchenga is today equally a crook, a corrupt element. Mchenga is not fit to continue as Director of Public Prosecutions for this country, not only because of the Chiluba case but because of his stinking bad record - political crookedness and prostitution seem to characterise his career. And in saying this, we are not being malicious or hateful of anyone; we are simply stating facts. And if Mchenga is disputing our conclusions about his conduct, let him take us on legally or otherwise so that the nation can know the truth about the way he has run that office.

We know that it’s not possible for Mchenga to resign from that office or for anyone other than his masters to hound him out of that office he has disgraced and betrayed. We say this because his masters have political power and will use that power to keep him in that office. We are saying these things for him and his masters to know that he has lost respect as a human being and as a professional because of his dishonesty and political malleability. He can keep that office but inside, he is dead, he has lost his soul together with his dignity. The only dignity that remains with Mchenga is that which no man can take, that which only God the creator can take away, that is of being a human being because even crooks are human beings.

There is no doubt Mchenga will pay highly for his dishonesty, deceit, lies and for hiring himself out to do wrong things, to cheat the people and rob them of their justice. Mchenga is not different from a bandit. He is actually a legal bandit.

This is why he wants people to believe that there is no merit in the appeal that was lodged by the Task Force against the acquittal of Chiluba. Anyway, as we have stated before, this is not the first time Mchenga is trying to use the argument of legal merit or the lack of it to justify his criminal decision, his dishonesty and lies. He did the same thing just a few years ago in the Kashiwa Bulaya case. In collusion with Levy and George Kunda, Mchenga entered a nolle prosequi in favour of Bulaya, claiming there was no merit in the case the Task Force had taken to court against him. However, eventually sanity prevailed in his master’s head, Levy, and as usual Mchenga was given instructions to restore the case. We all know what happened. We all know where Bulaya is today. Bulaya was convicted on the same facts, same charges Mchenga said had no merit, could not stand and secure a conviction. It was the Bulaya case that made us start reporting some of these cases verbatim for our people to see exactly what was going on in court. We followed this case. We have all the evidence of what was said in this case. We have more material on all these cases than Mchenga has because we report on them verbatim. This is why we can say that Mchenga’s decision has nothing to do with evidence or the law. It has everything to do with Mchenga hiring himself out to the service of Rupiah and Chiluba. That’s all that is propelling Mchenga to do what he is doing. On this we are absolutely sure and we challenge Mchenga to an argument on each of the grounds of appeal that were filed by the Task Force. It is sad that Mchenga thinks Zambians are fools. Yes, there may be some weak souls that have accepted to be fooled and others like him that have hired themselves to the service of criminals, but the great majority of our people are not fools, they are decent and honest human beings. We ask the Zambian people who had been following these matters to check the evidence that was delivered in court against Mchenga’s claims and see if it makes sense. They shouldn’t be intimidated simply because they are not lawyers. One doesn’t need to be a lawyer to see the dishonesty that Mchenga is swimming in. Unfortunately for him, he is swimming against the tide of facts and informed public opinion.

Anyway, it is good that our people have had an opportunity to see the kind of public officers they have. It is good that Mchenga has spoken out on this matter and given the reasons for his decision. It gives an opportunity to the Zambian people to assess what he is saying and accordingly hold him accountable. The Zambian people might have forgotten what Mchenga did in the Bulaya case and in other issues and forgave him. But we don’t think they will forget his treachery in this Chiluba case. He will live to regret this even long after Rupiah and Chiluba are gone. No Zambian will forget his treachery. Mchenga will permanently wear a badge of dishonour and disgrace - it will be with him to his grave. Mchenga has not only disgraced himself; he has also disgraced the entire legal profession. The Law Association of Zambia is unfortunately conspicuous by its silence on a matter of such significant public interest. Anyway, time will tell why this is so.

With the little law that we know, we have looked at Mchenga’s argument that the appeal has no merit. How he can say that about those grounds of appeal we have looked at and sought the opinion of many other good and honest lawyers in this country, defies logic. Mchenga simply does not make sense. But that is a matter for another day.

Labels: CHILUBA

posted by MrK @ 3:58 PM