Maravi

Ruling on LAP Green's judicial review today

Ruling on LAP Green's judicial review today
By Mwala Kalaluka, Allan Mulenga and Kombe Chimpinde
Tue 24 Jan. 2012, 12:54 CAT

RULING in the matter where Zamtel Telecommunications Company has sought judicial review in the Lusaka High Court following the freezing of its bank accounts by the Drug Enforcement Commission comes up today. And George Kunda says the MMD will not contest the reversal of the sale of Zamtel.

Lusaka High Court judge Evans Hamaundu is expected to hand down the ruling today after the matter came up for ex-parte hearing yesterday morning.

According to a statement in support of an application for leave to apply for judicial review filed in the Lusaka High Court, Zamtel cried out that the seizure of its accounts in Barclays Bank and Zambia National Commercial Bank would lead to a halt of its operations.

Zamtel in its application is seeking a reversal of its account seizure act by DEC.

Zamtel wants the court to also declare that the Act under which DEC seized the accounts, which is the prohibition and prevention of money laundering Act number 14 of 2001 was unconstitutional as it infringes article 161 of the Republican Constitution.

Zamtel also seeks damages suffered as the result of the seizure of its bank accounts.

Featuring on Muvi TV's The Assignment programme on Sunday night, Kunda, the former Republican vice-president in the Rupiah Banda regime, said the current government should take responsibility over the reversal of the sale of Zamtel.

Banda's government sold 75 per cent shares in Zamtel to LAP GreenN of Libya for US$257 million, a decision the previous government described as "the best".

But the current government has reversed the transaction, with President Michael Sata saying the deal was consummated by a corrupt regime.

"Let those who want to reverse the sale of Zamtel take responsibility; they are the government, but you see other people have got their own rights, for example LAP GreenN. And also you see Zamtel has been performing well. So far, I am told the subscriber base has increased from 100, 000 subscribers to a million. Now, it shows that the company is doing well, but anyway our government feels that they should repossess, we go by that," he said.

Kunda insisted that the reversal of the sale of Zamtel would be costly on the part of the government.

"As we have said before, this is going to be a very costly reversal and also what we are saying is that this is the best privatisation ever undertaken in this country and that is the fact because all the facts are there, but it is up to the government. If they want to reverse, let them reverse, but we can only state our position," he said.

Kunda described the Sebastian Zulu report on the sale of Zamtel as a fraud and fault-finding.

"Mr Sata, he is the President and he is going to take responsibility for this. You see these are the things which they are investigating us over when we go to the defunct Task Force; why did you do this; why did you do that. That is what is happening, procedural lapses; that is what they are investigating. So, even these issues those who have been involved in this, they will be answerable, they will be accountable to the people of Zambia because there are legalities involved," he said.

"This will entail terminating binding agreements. Now at international law, you have to go back to the agreement. You look at dispute resolution mechanisms will this be through arbitration, which law will be applied all those. We must be ready for that and of course the government will take responsibility."

Kunda accused President Sata of witch-hunt in his fight against corruption.

"For example, Sebastian Zulu was given instruction to say this was a corrupt transaction, I want it to be reversed. It is fraud, it is predetermined. They were going to reach this conclusion, anyway this was Mr Sata's wish and he is still pursuing it and threatening anybody. They have published this report so we must all debate, but when we debate as MMD he comes out very strongly, he is threatening with reprisals which are uncalled for, for a President of the country," said Kunda.

And Felix Mutati says the government must allow Zambians to decide what action should be taken regarding the privatisation of Zamtel to Lap GreenN of Libya.

Mutati, the former commerce minister and now leader of the opposition in Parliament, said it would not help to reverse the whole sale of Zamtel based on "a few" irregularities that surround the transaction.

He said the MMD will not join in giving emotional responses on the government's decision to reverse the sale but analyse its content as a basis for them to make informed responses to the Sebastian Zulu-led commission of inquiry findings.

Mutati said the MMD's preliminary assessments, however, based on extracts from the press indicated that there were contradictions in the report which has been made public.

"There are some contradiction and technical inaccuracies, for example, the report says government returned US$15 million as net profit, whereas at the same time they indicate that government was paid US$257 million. The second is the indicator that RP Capital valuation stands at US$38 million, while on the other side they blame RP for facilitating a total purchase price of US$257million," he said.

"On the technical platform, it indicates that the book value of Zamtel is US$84 million, but it does not indicate that when transaction has taken place under the ZDA Act, the basis of evaluation must be the net assets therefore does not take into account the liability and these are some of the exempts that have come through from the press indicating these inadequacies."

Mutati, who was last week summoned by the Taskforce investigating plunder in the previous regime, reiterated that the sale of Zamtel was in the best interest of Zambians as it was limping, stressing that reversing the sale because of "a few" irregularities may not be in the interest of the country.

"Zamtel at the time as confirmed by audited reports of 2009, which indicated that Zamtel registered a loss of US $20 million had a subscriber base of around 100,000 and its survival was premised on not paying taxes to government and also defaulting on its financial obligation to the various lenders," Mutati said. "In this matter, it is paramount that sometimes you may need to cure a wound but not cut a limb. This is a fundamental transaction."

Labels: COURTS, GEORGE KUNDA, LAP GREEN

posted by MrK @ 10:55 PM