BA Edgar Lungu batwipaya, Mwenya Musenge cried following the Constitutional Court’s 30-day ultimatum to 63 former cabinet ministers and their deputies to pay back money they obtained when they illegally stayed in office prior to the 2016 general elections.
On Monday, the Constitutional Court ordered that the K4,266,664.10 that Ngosa Simbyakula and 62 others acquired between May and July 2016 must be paid back to the Treasury by January 5, 2021.
In an interview, Musenge, who was Copperbelt minister at the time, wondered where he was going to get K56,058.30 that he has been ordered to return.
He said the bitter part of the Constitutional Court’s pronouncement was that President Lungu, the person who put him and the other 62 people in the predicament, was seated comfortably in State House leaving his ‘lieutenants’ open to the firing squad.
“Whoever has created all this fiasco is comfortably seated in State House and majority of these former ministers, some of his colleagues who were ministers during our days are back in government and are able to raise that kind of money. I am in opposition, I am a peasant. Where am I going to get that kind of money?” Musenge complained.
He said Zambia has a leadership vacuum.
“All I can say is that people of Zambia have seen for themselves the kind of leader we have in State House – the kind of leader that we have given the mandate to superintend over the affairs of our nation. You are able to tell with such an outcome the reason why this country is passing through difficulties economically…because there is a vacuum somewhere and especially in the Office of the President,” he said. “Of course, we have to find ways and means of doing what the Constitutional Court has said but the unfortunate part is that for me as Mwenya Musenge, I don’t know where I can get that kind of money and they are saying within a month! Where am I going to get that kind of money? Ba Edgar Lungu batwipaya, batwipaya, elo icatulya mulandu wakuba honest. Kanshi naifwe bene nga twaleibafye elo twali mu government, twaiba nga ifi fine bebile bonse, baleibafye, nga twaleibafwe pantu efyo cilepilibula (Edgar has killed us, and what has ‘eaten’ us is our honesty. We should have also stolen while we were in government just like they are stealing…this is what it means).”
Musenge said the court ruling raised many questions about what type of leader President Lungu was.
He said the President, despite being a lawyer who insisted that he understood the Constitution, had misdirected his ministers and deputy ministers when he allowed them to continue in office in 2016.
“Nga tukaifunya kwisa? For me as Mwenya Musenge, I don’t know where I will get that kind of money. Bailiffs may pounce on me and grab the little I have because I cannot raise that K56,000,” said Musenge. “This is what we have always been saying; when you have a commander-in-chief, even a battalion has a commander…the soldiers within that battalion listen to the directives and orders of the commander and not a single one can disobey the directives given by the commander and this is the situation we have found ourselves in by obeying what the commander was saying. Meanwhile, the commander stands aside while his lieutenants or soldiers are being penalised or jailed or tortured because of his misdirection.”