Maravi

Rupiah can’t survive without corruption

Rupiah can’t survive without corruption
By The Post
Thu 26 Aug. 2010, 04:00 CAT

Transparency International Zambia has asked honest questions seeking honest answers about what the Attorney General is saying and doing, or rather not doing, over judge Evans Hamaundu’s decision not to register the London High Court judgment against Frederick Chiluba and his tandem of thieves.

There are no indiscreet questions, but only indiscreet answers. So telling lies, half-truths will not help matters in any way. They are not telling our people the truth about the London High Court judgment, judge Hamaundu’s judgment and indeed about their own decision not to appeal clearly questionable judgments. With the confusion that Rupiah Banda’s government clearly wants to create around this issue, one would expect the Attorney General to take a position that is defensible given that he is a professional who should always guide the public where necessary in ways that are clear and not contradictory.

We have said before that every society needs institutions and offices that should be protected from the corruption of politics so that the public can retain confidence in their institutions. We do society a great injustice when we allow all offices and institutions to be politicised in a partisan way. If there has to be any politicisation, it has to be the type that works for the greater good of our people, nothing more and nothing less.

We are not surprised by the position taken by the Attorney General in the on-going debate on whether or not the state should appeal. As we said right at the beginning of this debate, we did not expect the government to appeal because it is clear that Rupiah, for some reason, has convinced himself that Chiluba is a political asset that he cannot do without.

For this reason, he seems prepared to pull every stop to help his political consultant escape his crimes. Rupiah’s determination does not surprise us. It does not appear inconsistent from the line that his government has taken on fighting corruption and protecting our meagre resources from corrupt elements. There is an air about Rupiah’s government which suggests that it is okay to steal as a public servant. And if you are caught, you may be lucky enough to receive presidential protection.

But what we do not expect is professionals giving opinions that may mislead the public in order to justify the indefensible. No amount of sugar-coating Rupiah’s protection of Chiluba will change what it is. It is wrong.

We have carefully looked at the statements attributed to the Attorney General and it makes very sad reading. As Transparency International Zambia has observed, what is the morality of refusing to pursue the registration of the London High Court judgment and yet claiming that it remains valid and will be enforced in other jurisdictions?

Why should other jurisdictions entertain Zambia’s attempts to enforce a judgment but its own courts have refused to enforce? What is clear is that Rupiah has decided that it is okay for these criminals to retain their ill-gotten wealth for whatever reasons. And any explanations that are being given are merely meant to diminish the severity of these disastrous choices that Rupiah has made.

It is important to understand the implications of enforcing the London High Court judgment against Chiluba. If that judgment is enforced, Chiluba would have to leave his Kabulonga home which was bought with stolen money. And this is a fact that was brought out and accepted in that judgment. It was clearly shown that the house where Chiluba today stays was bought with money stolen from the Zambian people. And what Rupiah is saying by refusing to enforce this judgment is that Chiluba should retain a house which the London High Court gave back to our people.

This is understandable for two reasons: Rupiah wants Chiluba to continue being his political consultant and advisor and a bankrupt Chiluba will not have the required credibility to perform that function well. Indeed, it does not surprise us that Rupiah is doing everything to protect Chiluba because he has told the nation before that he is scared of being followed when he is no longer President, meaning that a precedent of a convicted Chiluba whose ill-gotten wealth is recovered by the state is not acceptable to Rupiah.

The question is why? What is Rupiah doing as President that has him worried? The answer to this question was provided by Rupiah himself when he said today is Chiluba, tomorrow it may be you, meaning today is Chiluba, tomorrow it may be himself. It is simply a question of doing to Chiluba what Rupiah himself would like done unto him.

But this is not a good reason to start mischaracterising facts and attempting to mislead our people. In the last few days, there has been a concerted campaign claiming that the London High Court judgment has been discredited by an appeal by Meer Care and Desai, the London law firm that Chiluba and his league used to launder the money they stole from the government. According to the state-owned and government-controlled media, and now joined by the Attorney General, the appeal by Meer Care and Desai has discredited this judgment making it difficult to enforce it.

But if we are interested in the truth, we need to examine the whole matter and not try to do with snippets that will end up misleading our people. Those who are trying to rely on the Meer Care and Desai appeal are either not reading it or they are so determined to mislead that a half-truth here or there does not really matter.

We say this because the Meer Care and Desai appeal confirms that there was theft of public funds by Chiluba and his league. But what it decides is that, because of the use of official government institutions to move money about, Meer Care and Desai, as lawyers, may not have known that the monies they were handling were in fact stolen from the Zambian government.

This is the reason the Court of Appeal excused the lawyers. No one else was excused. And no other part of the London High Court judgment was discredited by the Court of Appeal or any other British court or judge. That appeal only affected the lawyers – Meer Care and Desai.
Chiluba’s accomplices, Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu, tried to appeal but failed. The other accomplices who are based in the United Kingdom, including fugitive Attan Shansonga and another law firm, Cave Malik and Company which was represented by Bimal Thaker, have never been reprieved.

The supplier of Chiluba’s expensive designer suits, shirts, pajamas, neckties, underwear and shoes – Boutique Basile – also appealed and got the right to have his matter heard. When the matter went back to trial, his case collapsed. The government of Zambia is sitting with a judgment of at least US $750,000 of the US $1.2 million that Chiluba spent on clothing that they have not bothered to enforce.

The Attorney General is today telling us that they are going to enforce this judgment in Europe and yet here is an instance where they are not bothering to collect money which is due to our people. What is the reason? It can only be that it is now Rupiah’s policy that these thieves and their friends abroad should not be pursued. Why?

It must be beneficial to Rupiah to let them go scot-free and keep their loot. This is the only way one can understand the Rupiah government’s determination to undermine all the successes that our people have scored in fighting the corruption of Chiluba and his league. And the Zambian people should not be surprised to one day wake up and hear that all the convictions secured against some members of Chiluba’s corrupt regime have in one way or another been annulled either through deliberately bungled appeals or by way of presidential pardons.

It does not matter how much propaganda Rupiah and his minions may dish out on behalf of Chiluba. There are very few people, if any, in our country today who do not know that Chiluba is a thief. There are also very few people, if any, in our country today who don’t understand what is going on with these cases, with what Rupiah is doing with Chiluba and his tandem of thieves.

It is not a secret that Rupiah is in league with Chiluba and that this league cannot be a clean one but a dirty, filthy and corrupt one. Rupiah is in league with a man who had abused the judiciary and other institutions of the state in his attempts to rob the Zambian people of their meagre financial resources. On what else can an alliance be founded between Rupiah and Chiluba if not on wrongdoing, abuse of office and corruption in all its manifestations?

It is also known what Chiluba’s political method and tactic was. Chiluba’s tactics are totally dependent on corruption. This is why to this day, he is not ashamed of popularising the brown envelope – a euphemism for bribery, corruption. These methods have resurfaced under Rupiah. It should not surprise anyone that Rupiah is doing everything to protect Chiluba.

The legal explanations from the Attorney General are nothing but a smokescreen for Rupiah’s decision to protect his criminal friend from losing his house and his loot and consequently his influence, politically and otherwise. But as we have stated before, this should not surprise anyone. Rupiah’s government is not only corrupt, it is going to defend corruption because it can’t survive without it.

Labels: CORRUPTION, COURTS, EVANS HAMAUNDU, TIZ

posted by MrK @ 11:44 PM