Maravi

Sata mocks Chiluba over corruption convictions

Sata mocks Chiluba over corruption convictions
By George Chellah, Mwala Kalaluka and Namatama Mundia
Fri 28 May 2010, 07:10 CAT

PF leader Michael Sata (left) yesterday urged former president Frederick Chiluba to celebrate Katele Kalumba’s conviction with the same zeal he showed over his dubious acquittal.

And Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) president Reuben Lifuka has said the sentencing of Kalumba and others to five years imprisonment on corruption charges raises a lot of questions about president Chiluba’s acquittal.

Commenting on the sentencing of MMD national secretary Kalumba and three others, Sata said the conviction of president Chiluba’s key finance officers was a reflection of bad supervision by the appointing authority.

“The English people have a saying that birds of the same feather flock together. I have no doubt in our judicial system and I can only hope that what we have seen on Katele the law will apply without discrimination even for the cases that are on appeal stage.

There should be no sacrificial lambs. We need confidence in our judicial system,” Sata said. “Let Chiluba continue celebrating his dubious acquittal. We want him to celebrate Katele’s conviction just like he celebrated his acquittal. Let him celebrate with the same zeal he had over his acquittal. He is the creator of these problems facing those people. Chiluba is the source of this corruption.

“Only those who were humble and God fearing like myself resisted this temptation. I was just a mere police constable who feared the law, that’s why today I can walk the streets of Lusaka with my head high because my hands are clean. But the doctors and professors we had, where are they today?”
He urged Lusaka High Court Deputy Director of Operations Edward Musona to be brave.

“What we need most is not hero-worshipping. We have to be very sincere because Katele and others have families too just like other people who have gone scot-free. Crime is the same, there is no discrimination. If you are corrupt, you are corrupt!” Sata said.

“If we go down in history, I think in the entire Commonwealth, this is the first time a former finance minister has found himself in an awkward position like this one. Anyway, the conviction of Katele and others is a reflection of bad supervision by the appointing authority.”

Sata said it was a pity that President Banda did not listen to advice.
“The problem is that Rupiah is not capable of learning because when all these things started he was with Levy but he abandoned Levy’s path, he is creating his own path. Katele was a sponsored presidential candidate but in one way or another he must give way for the freedom of one person,” Sata said.

“The MMD must be very, very careful because there will be a lot more sacrificial lambs. All Rupiah wants is re-election and he will do anything including passing a vote of no confidence in his own party or government like he just did on Mr Mukondo Lungu’s appointment.”
He said the current happenings would backfire on President Banda.

“On corruption Rupiah Banda is behaving like a Bemba man who wants to kill a monkey but he starts by cutting trees around before he can kill the monkey, which is his target. Rupiah knows the target in this fight against corruption,” Sata said. “But Rupiah must know that we still have a long way to go and the person he is relying on cannot be trusted. The person is only interested in his own glory and not other people’s glory. So it’s up to Rupiah to create more friends than enemies because right now he is creating a lot of enemies.”

Sata advised Katele to be strong.
And Lifuka said it was amazing that Chiluba, who presided over national matters at the time the convicted public officers were serving, was let off the hook.

“The president himself has been let off the hook despite having been the leader of the time, which is under scrutiny. So it raises a lot of questions about his acquittal and these questions will not die in a long time. They will be questions, which people will ask for a number of years,” Lifuka said. “The conviction of Katele and others is something that is expected in any investigation of this nature. We honestly see this as a natural process. The important thing is to pick vital lessons from this whole episode.”

Lifuka said some of the vital lessons that needed to be picked from the corruption convictions should not only be in the way that public resources were managed but also to do with probity among public officers.

Southern Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD) executive director Lee Habasonda said the convictions were a victory against corruption in the country.

“But an indictment on the judicial process because all these people were serving in the Chiluba regime and president Chiluba was also charged with similar cases,” Habasonda said. “So, it does put them judiciary on the spot. In fact they were serving his Chiluba regime and so it puts our judiciary on sharp focus.”

Habasonda said the people would be interested to see the conclusion of the issue because it involved a senior member of the ruling party.

“It is a lesson that those in public office must observe probity,” he said. “Those leaders who have been jailed have disappointed so many people who took them as role models. It leads to a lot of questions really on how our society will reconcile these difficulties that the people who are role models are the ones yet seen to be mismanaging resources through corruption.”

Habasonda said corruption undermined the very security that the convicted public officials purported to preserve.

“You remember this was the Zamtrop account,” Habasonda said. “While these gentlemen were trying to protect the security of the country through Zamtrop, the corruption totally undermined the very security they were trying to protect.”
On Wednesday, magistrate Musona said prosecution evidence to the effect that convicted former finance permanent secretary Stella Chibanda was very close to president Chiluba during her time in office was not considered in his judgment.

This was in a matter in which Kalumba, a former finance minister, Chibanda, former ministry of finance chief economist Bede Mpande, former finance ministry director of budget Boniface Nonde, former secretary to the treasury Professor Benjamin Mweene, former directors of the defunct Access Financial Services Limited (AFSL) Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu were facing 23 corruption charges.

These charges related to payments made to US security companies Wilbain Incorporated and Systems Innovation totaling US $20 million.

Magistrate Musona sent Kalumba to five years imprisonment with hard labour on one count out of three while Chibanda was sentenced to five years simple imprisonment on five out of nine counts.

Mpande, Nonde and Prof Mweene were sentenced to five years imprisonment with hard labour but suspended for 24 months on two counts, three counts and one count respectively.
Chungu and Kabwe were sent to prison for five years with hard labour.

Kalumba was charged in counts 18, 19 and 20, Chibanda was charged on counts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine while Mpande was charged on counts 11 and 12.

Nonde was charged on counts 13, 14 and 15, Prof Mweene was charged on count 16, Kabwe was jointly charged with Chungu on counts 21 and 22 while Chungu was solely charged on count 23.

Kalumba was found guilty on count 19, which involved the receipt of 4,000 pounds from the Zambia Security Intelligence Services (ZSIS), which according to Kalumba’s explanation was for clandestine government works outside the country.

Magistrate Musona noted that Kalumba explained that the money was meant to be paid as a “thank you” to low-ranking informers apart from organising cocktails, meetings and dinners.
Magistrate Musona said this was not a job for Kalumba as a minister at the time.

However, he said Kalumba had placed the responsibility of retiring this money on himself, but he did not do so.
Kalumba was acquitted on counts 18 and 20 involving the alleged receipt of a total of about US $10,000.

Chibanda was pronounced guilty on five counts, among them the corrupt procurement of farm number 3585 in Kabwe Niseo Farm using public funds and the varying receipt of some funds amounting to about US $57,000 from the ZSIS during the time of the transactions between the government and the two US companies.

Magistrate Musona said he found a lot of contradictions in Chibanda’s defence over the farm.
Chibanda was acquitted on four counts involving US $20,000.

Mpande was charged and found guilty on two counts of receipt of US $27,000 from the ZSIS, which he has since refunded.

Nonde was charged with three counts of receipt of about US $22,000 from the ZSIS and was found guilty on all counts despite refunding the money.

Prof Mweene was charged and found guilty on one count of corruption involving the erection of a cottage at his plot in Lusaka’s Jesmondine using resources from the Zamtrop account at the behest of AFSL. Prof Mweene also refunded the government the amount used to construct the said cottage.

Kabwe and Chungu were jointly charged with two counts of corruption with public officer involving their procurement of a farm for Chibanda in Kabwe and the construction of a cottage for Prof Mweene as gratification.

They were both found guilty on the two charges but Chungu was again acquitted on count 23 where he was alleged to have paid US $10,030 to Chibanda’s son, Regis Kombe Chibanda.

Magistrate Musona said Chungu was acquitted on this charge because there was no evidence to show that the money was given to Stella Chibanda, as his son was an adult at the time of the alleged transaction.

But magistrate Musona said most of the government officials involved in the Zamtrop account and payments to System Innovations and Wilbain Incorporated were also secret agents of the Office of the President.

Magistrate Musona, who described the Office of the President as the thread in all the Zamtrop accounts transactions, said the government officials that were both in the Ministry of Finance and were OP secret agents included Kalumba, Mpande, Nonde and Chibanda.

“At the time the government of Zambia was liquidating its indebtedness to Systems Innovation and Wilbain Incorporated some officers at the ministry of finance are alleged to have received… payments from male Xavier Chungu,” he said. “These payments were drawn from an account called Zamtrop.”

Magistrate Musona said Kalumba and the others were senior civil servants.
“Accused seven Kalumba was a politician. He was a minister of finance. I have no doubt therefore in my mind that these servants and a minister occupied government office. They were holding public office,” he said.

Magistrate Musona said according to prosecution evidence the security contracts were regarded as secret and could therefore not be put on the ministry of finance debt database for inclusion in the financial report.

But magistrate Musona said this was a contradiction because the information for other security contracts were included on the debt database

He said he had noted from the prosecution evidence that junior civil servants that wanted to probe the payments to System Innovations and Wilbain Incorporated experienced difficulties from the senior civil servants.

He said a prosecution witness Bernard Mungulube PW8 had testified how powerful Chibanda was at the time to an extent that even a permanent secretary could not control her.

Magistrate Musona said Mulungube told the court that at one time when he asked for documentation over the security contract payments, Chibanda picked up a phone and said: “Mr President can I come for a cup of tea?”

He said Mungulube took this as some form of intimidation from someone who was powerful and close to president Chiluba.

“I will also not consider the evidence about Stella Mumba Chibanda intimidating PW8,” he said. “Dr FTJ Chiluba was not heard on that.”

However, magistrate Musona said he had considered the evidence of prosecution witness number 13, James Mtonga, despite being an accomplice witness because it collaborated with other prosecution witnesses.

Magistrate Musona then granted an application by the state to have Chibanda’s farm in Kabwe forfeited to the state.

He also granted an application for convicted Kalumba and Chibanda to pay back the money they received to the rightful owner.

When state prosecutor Fred Malambo applied that Chibanda’s farm and money be forfeited to the state, her lawyer Nicholas Chanda argued that the application was immature.

“It has to be made in the next 14 days, so I was for the view that Mr Malambo should have waited. His application is immature. The court has convicted Ms Chibanda and in addition to the five years she should pay back money she does not have,” Chanda explained.

But Malambo said there was no such section, which talks about making an application in 14 days.
“Just there and then, you can make an application,” he said.
Malambo added that Kalumba should have paid back the money to the state the time he was arrested.

“He Kalumba should have said the truth that he received the 4,000 British Pounds if he was ready to pay back but he denied the charge, hence the application to have the money paid back,” Malambo said.

In his ruling, magistrate Musona said the law stated that when an accused was convicted, the state could make applications.

He said he looked at the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) Act of 1996 where “shall” was used, saying the court had no discretion when the word “shall” is used in an Act.

Magistrate Musona said the word “shall” as used in the ACC Act No.42 of 1996 was mandatory.
He said the court’s duty was to interpret the law.

“In the circumstances, the application by the state is granted in the manner prayed for for the money to be paid back,” ruled magistrate Musona.

Labels: CHILUBA, CORRUPTION, REUBEN LIFUKA, SATA

posted by MrK @ 3:03 PM