Amos Chanda Defends himself on Swazi Land, dishes out more details
The Swazi gift hoax: My Response
1. Yes, I remember Dora Siliya frantically asking for a meeting with the President and I arranged it. She requested Attorney General Likando Kalaluka to be present. Simon Miti, Kaizer Zulu, Sukwana Lukangaba, Daniel Siwo and Hibeene Mwinga somehow joined.
2. Dora abruptly requested to leave before meeting was over and she asked that Attorney General leaves too. In her absence this meeting resolved that the issue she confronted the President about was a non-issue because Kaizer and I had actually declined the land offers in question. In a follow-up meeting under the guidance of Secretary to the Cabinet Dr. Simon Miti, we resolved that such a gift was above the allowance provided for in the civil service protocols on gifts. We therefore declined it.
3. Earlier on, I had sought the advise of Sukwana Lukangaba the State House legal advisor who was in the company of ACC DG Kapetwa Phiri qhonhad been alerted of this “grand corruption”and so he wanted his officers to interview me. He was told the matter did not exist because we had simply declined the offers and kept quite as is the case in many instances in government. No corruption charges could arise out of an event that had not occurred, they said. But since there was a media uproar, there was no need to hide I judged, and I addressed a briefing where I made public this position that yes, I was offered but did not take it.
I should hope that the now common avalanche of pseudo securocrats and pedestrian jurists on oaths and allegiance, will understand that any deliberately calculated smear thrust into public space now, can’t wait 25 years to be addressed.
4. As for the stealthily calculated provocations to try and draw me into discussions between two sovereigns (ECL and King Mswati), please understand that that some semblance of oath and secrecy may come into play, and so I won’t be drawn into it. Suffice to say this matter didn’t have any element of malpractice and these matters were both publicly and privately closed.
5. Had Dora stayed longer in the meeting at issue, or had she been a staff member of State House, she would have known that there are no lies and no contrived facts about this Swazi land gift hoax. Since this matter is in a book that I have not fully read, but if this section says what is has been reported, in the manner it is being reported to have been written, then a fuller version of that particular incident shall be addressed later in greater detail. Suffice here to state that despite the tensions alludes to, Simon Miti himself offered very wise counsel on civil service protocols on gifts; Sukwana Lukangaba was very pointed in his very wise legal counsel on potential legal landmines over this matter. I was grateful to these colleagues. Even Elias Chipimo called me and offered free advice. In this, and additional discourse to come, I wonder what lies one can deduce on this subject.
Amos Chanda
Shiwangandu, Muchinga Province.