Mulongoti doesn’t have integrity to question my standing – Kavindele

Mulongoti doesn’t have integrity to question my standing – Kavindele
By Patson Chilemba
Tue 11 May 2010, 04:00 CAT

ENOCH Kavindele yesterday asked why he has not been prosecuted if he issued a K5 million cheque on an insufficiently funded account.

Reacting to attacks on him by works and supply minister Mike Mulongoti that during the nominations for the MMD presidency in 2008 which saw President Rupiah Banda elected as presidential candidate, Kavindele paid K5 million cheque as nomination fee for the candidacy but the cheque bounced, Kavindele - who is former Republican vice-president - wondered why it had taken two years for Mulongoti to raise such a serious allegation.

"Why hasn't the matter gone to court? Why didn't they bring it to my attention? Cheques are now cleared within a day or so," he said.
Kavindele said the K5 million was not paid on an insufficiently funded account.

"Around that time, I had disposed off an asset that I owned for US $3 million dollars, and after paying the usual statutory obligations to ZRA Zambia Revenue Authority, the tax, the rest of the money was in the bank.

As far as I know the offence associated with cheques is issuing a cheque on an insufficiently funded account. But in this particular case billions of Kwacha were in the bank, and the bank confirmed that the cheque was sent back not on account of insufficient money," Kavindele said.

"I had been informed that some people in the national executive committee NEC had resolved to stop me from standing for this position, and therefore contingent measures were taken to stop payment of that particular cheque. In any case, why has it taken two years for Mulongoti to come up with this allegation?"

Kavindele said it had now become a culture under the present leadership to raise allegations or threaten imprisonments against perceived political opponents.

He said he would not be intimidated by such manouvres.

"What I lack is the political power to discipline chaps like Mulongoti. But the other stuff, mbongo, money is readily available...and anyone in this country who can suggest that I am unable to pay K5 million needs to have their heads examined," Kavindele said. "For a retiree, I believe I live comfortably.

This season I am producing 30,000 bags of maize which I financed myself without bank loans and therefore believe that I don't have to be in politics in order to live."

Kavindele reminded Mulongoti that today's leaders were tomorrow’s former leaders. He said his involvement in politics was to serve, the fact which Dr Kenneth Kaunda acknowledged in a letter he addressed to Kavindele on February 2, 1989.

Kavindele said he never received a salary when he was in UNIP.

On Mulongoti's statement that Kavindele should avoid posing as a member of the ruling party because he was expelled for failing to remit 82,000 Rand to the party, Kavindele said he would not go down on his knees pleading to continue being an MMD member.

"Regarding the 82,000 Rands he is talking about, I am glad that he is aware that I was raising these funds and raised much more for the MMD and luckily I obtained receipts and made people who collected the money from Government House to sign for it," he said.

Kavindele said late president Levy Mwanawasa raised several allegations against him over the matter when he removed him as vice-president.

He said he even instructed the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to investigate him both locally and internationally.

"In my last letter to Levy, I reminded him that he had made serious allegations about me and for five years I had been waiting the outcome of those and Levy wrote back to me saying that he was sorry,” Kavindele said. “I should have reminded him soon after the investigations had ended. Unfortunately, soon after that Mwanawasa travelled to Egypt and never came back, because I had intended then to get from him in writing that his investigations had yielded no faults on my part."

Kavindele said he was not like Mulongoti who was expelled from the MMD and contested elections on the FDD ticket in Mpongwe where he was soundly defeated. He said after that, Mulongoti pleaded with president Mwanawasa who nominated him as member of parliament and appointed him minister.

"If Mulongoti couldn't run a four-bedroomed lodge, what makes him have the arrogance to suggest that I have been dishonest in my party dealings when in fact those are the chaps who are now benefiting from the sweat that I put into this party? Mulongoti does not have the integrity to question my standing because he failed to run a four bedroomed lodge on Roan Road," Kavindele said.

On Mulongoti's assertion that he was not a member of MMD, Kavindele said he had several options but would fight to defend his integrity and the good name he had built over the years. He said he stood as an independent in 2006 because the MMD chose to adopt another candidate in his place.

Kavindele wondered on what basis he was allowed to challenge President Banda for the MMD candidature in 2008 if he were not a member of the ruling party.

He said he recently renewed his MMD card number 2 in front of the MMD NEC members.
"I was indeed at this year's card renewal and Mr Banda spent five minutes talking about how valuable I was to the party. So now how can a small boy and junior chap state that I was expelled? I am the last elected vice-president of the MMD and if I had wished I would even claim through the courts that I be declared the defacto vice-president of MMD because I have never been replaced at all," Kavindele said.
"So this is just their nature of political campaigning to intimidate perceived opponents. It's a very serious indictment that a country so endowed with natural resources has to have very high poverty levels. So people like Mulongoti and others should help Banda improve the lot of our people."

Kavindele said he had served for 21 years and held several Cabinet positions.

He said it did not make sense for him to want to become member of parliament because the only job available was the presidency which he had stated in writing to President Banda and MMD national secretary Katele Kalumba that he would not contest.

Kavindele said the statement from Mulongoti was a last ditch effort to disgrace perceived opponents before the party's convention.

Reacting to Kavindele's earlier statement that the MMD government sent militias to Mufumbwe to beat up people during the parliamentary by-election, Mulongoti said Kavindele was expelled and went ahead to contest as an independent candidate in Kabompo East where he lost to North Western Province chairperson Daniel Kalenga.

Mulongoti said Kavindele should have been in jail had the party secretariat taken the bounced cheque to the police in line with the law.