DR CHITALU CHILUFYA’S ACQUITTAL SO DISAPPOINTING BUT IT WAS EXPECTED-Otis Bwalya.
The fight against corruption in the current government is a mockery which has no political will whatsoever. First and foremost the head of state Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu has publicly admitted that there is too much corruption among some of his ministers and this is a fact we totally agree with him. There are corrupt cases which have been investigated by the Anti Corruption Commission involving some ministers such as Mr Ronald Chitotela and the recent one involving Dr Chitalu Chilufya who has been squirted on all charges for which he was arrested and taken to court.
In all these instances, not one of these two ministers was suspended from performing their official functions to pave way for proper investigations. The appointing authority did not even bother suspending them as required by the law. This is the same head of state just a few days ago was issuing threats to ACC accusing them of trying to hound him out of power.
During times of appearing for court sessions, these ministers could hire party cadres, including traditional leaders to stand by them to basically intimidate the court. This action in itself is a psychological trigger to make people or those investigating th to think that they were innocent. In the case of Dr Chitalu Chilufya, the arresting officer entangled himself, he defeated himself when he presented to court that all the evidence he had gathered forming the basis for arresting the minister were false, giving Dr Chitalu Chilufya an outright acquittal. This acquittal is quite disappointing to us but it was expected.
The question we have is, why in the first place did he take the matter to court if what he discovered in his investigations would favour Dr Chilufya? All these are the consequences of not suspending culprits from their duties or official positions when under investigation because they can easily interfere with witnesses or evidence.
Even when the ACC suspended their officer for backpedalling on his evidence, the Court went ahead to acquit Dr Chilufya. These are just but some of the cases that shall be revisited for further trial when UPND forms government next year because it is tax payer’s money that is involved here.
OTIS BWALYA,
INFORMATION AND PUBLICITY SECRETARY IPS.
UPND, LUSAKA PROVINCE.
0966753300.