Maravi

Fingers will be burnt over Zamtel, warns Kavindele

Fingers will be burnt over Zamtel, warns Kavindele
By Ernest Chanda
Tue 27 Oct. 2009, 04:01 CAT

FORMER Republican vice-president Enoch Kavindele has warned that the intended corrupt sale of Zamtel will burn the fingers of those involved in the deal.

Featuring on a UNZA Radio programme yesterday, Kavindele said although some people looked clever for now, a time of reckoning would come.

"We all know the story behind the sale of Zamtel. We were told that RP Capital Partners would not be involved in this any more and that they would not be paid anything by this government. But the opposite is true now; RP Capital are still there fully involved in the sale of Zamtel, and most of the companies bidding for Zamtel are connected to RP Capital," Kavindele said.

"Let me warn these people that this Zamtel issue will burn their fingers if it's not handled properly. They may get away with it now but a time will come when it will burn their fingers. There are a lot of people I know who served in the Chiluba government and are now serving jail sentences because of the same dubious activities.
We are also interested in knowing the value of Zamtel at the moment and how much it will cost."

Kavindele said he did not believe in foreigners developing Zambia, but Zambians themselves. He said it was sad that government was not supporting its own people who wanted to invest in industries like telecommunication.

"Zamtel is an extremely valuable asset and we would like to see the valuation report about it. We also want to know how much they will sell it for. A British company paid US $3 billion for 15 per cent shares in Vodacom of South Africa. We want to see what value Zamtel is put at. Zamtel has a lot more infrastructure than most of these companies. If you sell 75 per cent shares in Zamtel it means that buyer will own the whole company, so we want to know what it will be sold for," Kavindele said.

He vowed to fight the sale of Zamtel because it was not being done properly.

"This idea of optic fiber was not introduced by Zesco and Zamtel. It was started by an ordinary Zambian. I remember many years ago when I was in government, there was a young engineer who said he had an idea of setting up an optic fiber project,” Kavindele recalled.

“And he wanted me to introduce him to people with money, so I personally gave him transport money to go to South Africa and meet people who could help him. He went and they made serious arrangements to start the project. But somehow due to fear of a Zambian getting involved into serious business, they government got it from him and gave it to Zamtel and Zesco.

"The sale of Zamtel is something we are going to fight. We will fight it because it's not being done properly at all. There is always an opportunity that if here they get away with it we can go to a country where those people who would have bought Zamtel came from and engage their government.

We will say this thing has not been done transparently. There is such a case in Nigeria and the Nigerians who did not want to be cheated out of their own asset took that case to the Hague."

Labels: CORRUPTION, ENOCH KAVINDELE, RP CAPITAL PARTNERS, ZAMTEL

posted by MrK @ 8:15 AM