DEC HAS SEIZED OUR K7m, CLAIMS NRPUP
TONSE Pamodzi Alliance Presidential Spokesperson George Chisanga says the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) has seized K7,398,500 from the NRPUP, funds he says are meant for election activities.
However, efforts to reach the DEC for a comment proved futile by press time, as calls went unanswered.
Meanwhile, NRPUP presidential candidate Brian Mundubile says DEC’s actions are an attempt by the UPND to polarize the party’s operations ahead of the elections.
Speaking at a press briefing, Tuesday, Chisanga said of that amount, about K5.5 million was meant for poll monitors and poll agents, while the rest was set aside for NRPUP’s rallies in Mazabuka, Livingstone and Choma.
“I want to start by first correcting the rumor that has gone viral. There’s a story going round that I have been a victim of a kidnap and so have been my colleagues, Mr Japhen Mwakalombe and Mr Sebastian Kopulande, who is still in custody. I just want to correct the impression, we have not been kidnapped, my colleague, Japhen Mwakalombe, myself and honourable Sensio Banda were yesterday subjected to a gruesome operation by the joint operation of the DEC, Police and Anti-Corruption Commission. We were kept in communicado from about 11:00 hours to about 23:00 hours. What we were informed was that they were doing an operation at my premises of business. I run a law practice and this law practice, sometimes, avails the facility for members of the Tonse Alliance to come and conduct some business. I had allowed my colleagues to sit in our boardroom to conduct the business,” Chisanga explained.
“The business that we were doing is connected with preparation for the election. The good people that support the Tonse Alliance had responded to the query that we had made before to help us mobilise resources that are required to be utilised for the purposes of ensuring that our supporters and agents who will be working in polling stations will have a little resource to be able to do that work and this is the job that my colleagues who were found in my boardroom were carrying out. The total amount of money that we had was K7,398,500. Of that amount, about K5.5 million was devoted to equip poll monitors and poll agents. The remainder of that money was supposed to be deployed in the rallies that we had prepared, one in Mazabuka, one in Livingstone and one in Choma”.
Chisanga said DEC had asked him and two of his colleagues to present themselves before the Commission yesterday at 14:00 hours.
“I had provisionally left the office to go and conduct some other work and the people that were found there were subjected to a rigorous search and when I joined, I was also… my staff were violated, brutalised, they were searched even when they shouldn’t have been searched, my premises was turned upside down. At about 23:00 hours, we were then informed by the joint operation team that they were going to go away with the money that they found on my colleagues. Whatever questions the joint team asked my colleagues, they were answered effectively. We even gave them documents that showed clearly how the money has been earmarked and what it’s supposed to be utilised for. Unfortunately, we ended up losing that money even when there was no criminality associated with that money. They were unrelenting and they collected that money. The intention, clearly, is to polarize the Tonse Alliance in the works that they are doing,” said Chisanga.
“The next steps they are about to take, now, from what they informed us is that we are all supposed to present ourselves at the DEC at 14:00 hours today (Tuesday), possibly in a quest to have them formalise the arrest they would like to carry out on us. On the question of how many have been summoned [by DEC], I am one of those who’ve been summoned, the other ones are honourable Japhen Mwakalombe and Sensio Banda. That little resource that they found in our hands is a drop in the ocean compared to what other political parties are utilising in conducting their political affairs. The intention of the UPND is to decapitate the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance but we are not relenting. We are still determined, if time allows, we are going to go to Southern Province”.
Meanwhile, Mundubile claimed that UPND was targeting the NRPUP’s election observers so that it could disrupt the party’s capacity to protect the vote
“We did not see any logic, how DEC could turn up at an office and find our members preparing to send money to polling centres, you proceed to seize that money, all with a view of polarizing our operations. We want to assure you, our operations will not be polarized. It does not matter how many individuals they are going to pick, the Zambians and our members are all resolved, they remain resolute to ensure that they defend the vote. The polling agents out there remain resolute to turn up at polling stations, the money will come later. The pattern is very clear, the UPND would like to polarize our election monitoring units. You’ll see a pattern where they’ve targeted those of our members who have been seconded to the national results centre at Mulungushi,” claimed Mundubile..
“Among the people they are targeting is Nonde Mubanga, honourable George Chisanga, Kasonde Mwenda, Enock Roosevelt Tonga, Counsel Jonas Zimba, Japhen Mwakalombe, Sebastian Kopulande, Davies Chisopa, Mutotwe Kafwaya and Counsel Kambwa Aongola. All these names that I’ve read out are names of individuals that are connected to election management so UPND has made it a mission to try and arrest all these individuals under frivolous charges so as to polarize our election monitoring unit”.
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