Maravi

Rupiah is under pressure – Sata

Rupiah is under pressure – Sata
By Patson Chilemba
Mon 16 Nov. 2009, 04:00 CAT

RUPIAH Banda is under pressure and his conscience is troubling him over Frederick Chiluba's dubious acquittal, Patriotic Front (PF) president Michael Sata charged yesterday.

Commenting on President Banda's statement that he refused to appeal former president Chiluba's acquittal, branding the lawyers at the dissolved Task Force on Corruption as selfish people who wanted to make business out of politics, Sata said President Banda was very troubled because he committed himself into something without realising the consequences of his actions.

He said in trying to justify his criminal connivance over the Chiluba matter, President Banda had ended up piling lies upon lies.

“He is under pressure. His conscience is troubling him because first of all, the figures he is giving of US $13 million, he should tell us, how much money did the Zambian government pay for this fight against corruption? The money he is talking about, it is not our money, and the people who released that money are not complaining, so what is he trying to justify?” Sata asked. “We are seeing so many things, now we even have three fictitious judges listening to the appeal, he is just in trouble, he doesn't know how to get out of it.”
Sata warned that President Banda would burn his fingers over his defence of Chiluba, be it political or otherwise.

“The whole point is he committed himself to certain things without knowing exactly what he was committing himself to, and he is going to burn his fingers on this Chiluba issue. He will definitely burn his fingers if he has not already burnt his fingers,” Sata said. “At the moment we are talking about one case which we should have forgotten a long time ago. We are talking of the same case of plunder, plunder, plunder, which we should have already forgotten about.”

On President Banda's statement that the PF leader was asking government to appeal Chiluba's case when the state had not appealed his, Sata charged that President Banda was a very ignorant man.

He said nobody stopped the state from appealing his case but President Banda personally instructed the withdrawal of Chiluba's appeal from the High Court.
“Haven't you seen that they have appealed against a High Court judge, Simasiku, when I won the case of false imprisonment? So what is Rupiah Banda talking about now?” asked Sata.

Last week, President Banda claimed that dissolved Task Force lawyers were paid US $13 million to prosecute Chiluba and yet they were prosecuting him for theft of US $500,000.

This was followed by another statement in Solwezi where the President said he refused to appeal Chiluba's acquittal, branding the lawyers at the dissolved Task Force as selfish people who wanted to make business out of politics.
On the attacks on him by MMD cadres in Solwezi, Sata said President Banda and his colleagues were panicking and they had exported MMD thugs from Lusaka and the Copperbelt to Solwezi.

“If we wanted to join Rupiah Banda's violence, Solwezi would have been ungovernable,” said Sata.

There has been widespread violence in Solwezi as political parties campaign for votes in this Thursday's by-election.

Labels: RUPIAH BANDA, SATA

posted by MrK @ 5:06 AM