Maravi

Chiluba is guilty and can’t do without lies

Chiluba is guilty and can’t do without lies
By The Post
Mon 31 May 2010, 04:01 CAT

By the conviction of Katele Kalumba, Frederick Chiluba and Xavier Chungu have also been convicted. Katele, Stella Chibanda, Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu cannot be guilty of corruption, theft and plunder of public resources without implicating Chiluba and Xavier.

We say this because the evidence that has been laid in the courts of law over the last eight years clearly shows that the syndicate to defraud and steal public resources was headed by Chiluba and run from State House. This is where everything started. Chiluba used his power to get his subordinates to steal for him. But they did not only steal for him, they also stole for themselves.

This newspaper has closely followed these matters and tried to report as accurately as possible all the proceedings that took place in court. In fact, in most cases we carried verbatim reports of the evidence that was given in court by both the state and Chiluba and his tandem of thieves. The story is very clear and well documented. Those who want to make their own judgments can go back to the records and see what was said and not said.

Chiluba used Xavier, his director general of intelligence, to divert public resources for his personal use. This is why today Chiluba can brag that he had US$ 8.5 million of private funds in a government account, an intelligence bank account in London. It seems that to Chiluba it makes sense for a head of state, first of all, to have that kind of disposable cash; and secondly, to keep such cash in a government account. This is what happens when thieves are caught, even common sense eludes them.

Everything that Chiluba says about his so-called personal money – US$ 8.5 million – is complete and utter nonsense. Where did Chiluba, a man who entered State House as a pauper, get US$ 8.5 million which he needed to keep in a government account?

Chiluba has never attempted to give any meaningful explanation to this all-important question. The nonsense that it came from well-wishers and friends is just that – nonsense, a lie. What kind of friends go around giving presidents US$ 8 million for no reason? What is the consideration? Is it government contracts that he was selling?
But in the conviction of Katele, the problem for Chiluba is even more fundamental than what we have said. We should not forget that the crimes for which Katele and others have been convicted is not just receiving 4,000 British pounds or some other pittance; it is more than that.

Katele and his crew in the Ministry of Finance, where he was Chiluba’s minister in charge of public funds, diverted US$ 20 million, claiming that it was going to pay for government contracts when the truth in the now famous Zambia Intelligence Services account at the Zambia National Commercial Bank branch in London, the Zamtrop account, shows something else.

That money was chewed by Chiluba, Xavier, Katele and others. This is what has exposed them and landed them in the problems they have today. Government money was being moved around the world to pretend that suppliers had been paid and then it found its way back into their hands via the Zamtrop account with Chiluba claiming that he had received this money from well-wishers.

It is this money that bought Chiluba’s expensive suits, pajamas, high-heeled or platform shoes of all sorts of skins and colours, shirts, neckties and expensive underwear. It is also the same money that was used to acquire all sorts of properties here and there, including the house in which Chiluba today lives in Lusaka’s Kabulonga. This is the job that Xavier, Faustin and Aaron were doing for him as they looked after their own pockets as well.

The scheme that Xavier was running on behalf of Chiluba was not a very complicated one. Their arrogance made them believe that no one was going to check what they were doing. This is why they kept claiming that these are matters of national security. What is national security about buying expensive underwear using stolen government money?

Xavier created contracts with companies that he could control. Katele and his friends in Ministry of Finance paid those companies huge amounts of money in foreign accounts. And that money was handed back to Xavier via the Zamtrop account for their use with Chiluba.

After he got the money, Xavier would send it to his criminal friends in Access Financial Services Limited, Faustin and Aaron, who tried to launder this money through their lawyers in London – Meer Care and Desai and Cave Malik & Company. Faustin and Aaron brought this money back to Zambia and used it as Chiluba directed and also to reward their friends in the Ministry of Finance who were helping them to steal.

This is what explains why people like Stella were being given farms and tractors. Professor Benjamin Mweene, Chiluba’s secretary to the treasury, who received a suspended sentence last week had a house built for him in Lusaka’s Jesmondine area for free. He also received a tractor out of these same funds. It is these same monies that they used to keep their friend at Zambia National Commercial Bank, Samuel Musonda who Chiluba had put there as managing director, happy.

They also paid for a house for him. This is how the scam worked – ‘look after us, we will look after you’. Chiluba was operating like a don in a criminal family. Smaller players in this grand scheme were oiled with cash payments and all sorts of other favours on their trips abroad. This is how the then Chief Justice Mathew Ngulube and other judicial officers found themselves entrapped, ensnared and beholden to this criminal clique. The list is long and embarrassing.

Chiluba cannot today say that the charges of corruption against him and his tandem of thieves “… were a political witch-hunt against him and his officials…and the courts were just used to achieve this political goal by Dr Chiluba’s enemies”. Any fair-minded person can see through the nonsense of Chiluba’s rantings. It requires little intelligence – if a little intelligence is all one has – to see that Chiluba is lying, he is not telling the truth, what he is saying is nonsense.

The evidence in our courts of law has shown that Chiluba was at the helm of these criminal arrangements. And it is not only our courts here that have made this conclusion. This syndicate was laid bare in the UK courts as well. To accuse the courts and his imaginary enemies of being responsible for the crimes that he committed is the highest level of indecency. Anyway, we are not surprised; this is consistent with Chiluba’s character of deceit – a little lie here, another one there is the way he gets by. No one told Chiluba to abuse his office in the way that he did.

His claim that the corruption investigations only centred around him and his officers is also a lie. It was Chiluba who had called in Scotland Yard to come and investigate allegations of Kenneth Kaunda stealing money. They came, they investigated and found that Kaunda never stole anything. Chiluba’s claim that the investigations left out the corruption of Levy Mwanawasa and his regime also doesn’t make sense, it is nonsense. We say this because Levy had hardly settled down in office as president of the Republic when the investigations against Chiluba were commenced.

So what was there to investigate about Levy? If there is anything Levy did, let them investigate it and all those who committed crimes with him or in his name should be brought to book. After all, the one in charge of government today – Rupiah Banda – is Chiluba’s very good friend.

Who has stopped them from investigating Levy and his regime, and most of them are still serving in the current government? As for Kaunda, who had stopped him from prosecuting him for any crime? And moreover, what didn’t Chiluba do to humiliate Kaunda? Didn’t he have him searched for stolen books? Didn’t he arrest and detain him on Christmas Day? Anyway, this is what liars do! They always think people have short memories and have forgotten what happened yesterday and the sequence of events.

Wynter Kabimba is very right: Chiluba is guilty and his acquittal remains a scandal, a case of corruption in itself for future investigations, arrests and prosecutions of all those involved in it.

Labels: CHILUBA, CORRUPTION, KATELE KALUMBA, WYNTER KABIMBA

posted by MrK @ 3:46 AM