EXPOSING THE $11 MILLION DIVERSION, PF AND EMMANUEL MWAMBA’S COVER-UP COLLAPSES

EXPOSING THE $11 MILLION DIVERSION, PF AND EMMANUEL MWAMBA’S COVER-UP COLLAPSES

By Tobbius Hamunkoyo- LLB

As a lawyer who has taken time to carefully study, understand, and expose the lies surrounding the so-called “$11 million saga,” I am compelled to set the record straight. The Patriotic Front (PF) and its mouthpieces, including Emmanuel Mwamba, have gone out of their way to distort facts in order to mislead the Zambian people.

They claim it is impossible to withdraw such an amount from Turkey, but this is nothing more than a smokescreen designed to cover up corruption that unfolded here at home. The Malanji case was never about armored planes carrying sacks of dollars out of Europe. It was about unexplained wealth and suspicious transactions within Zambia, backed by hard evidence presented in our courts by the National Prosecution Authority (NPA).

The record of evidence is clear. The National Prosecution Authority (NPA) demonstrated that of the US$7.1 million allocated for property purchases in Turkey, only US$1.1 million was accounted for, while US$4.6 million vanished into unexplained withdrawals, where did it go?. Soon after his return, Joseph Malanji began making massive deposits into Zambian banks.

In October 2020, he deposited K10 million in K2 million tranches. In December 2020, he casually walked into the bank with US$204,500 and US$100,000 in cash. By March 2021, he was depositing US$100,000 at a time, and on 31 December 2020, he purchased houses in Silverest Gardens worth US$50,000, paid entirely in cash. These were not theoretical transfers, they were concrete domestic transactions and Emmanuel Mwamba is aware about this despite hiding behind a lot of PF pages to distort the truth.

The investigations further revealed the quick conversion of these funds into luxury assets. Malanji acquired two helicopters, a Bell 430 and a Bell 206, both traced, frozen, and eventually repatriated to Zambia as proceeds of crime. Several properties purchased under suspicious circumstances were also seized. These are not the figments of PF’s imagination or Mwamba’s propaganda; they are material assets, identified, recovered, and presented before court of competent jurisdiction as part of the prosecution’s case.

PF’s “$11 million lie” narrative deliberately omits one key fact, government-to-government transfers do exist, but they must strictly comply with the Public Finance Management Act. This is why former Treasury Secretary Fredson Yamba was convicted, for unlawfully authorising transfers to the Turkey mission outside prescribed financial procedures. So yes, governments can transfer money under special circumstances, but not in violation of the law. PF’s attempt to use this argument as a shield for corruption is both dishonest and insulting to Zambians.

I repeat, I have taken time, as a lawyer, to examine this case and expose the truth. Emmanuel Mwamba and PF have tried to confuse the people with half-truths and lies as usual, but the facts remain facts. The corruption was here at home, the money was deposited here, the assets were bought here, and the courts acted on evidence, not speculation. Zambians deserve better than leaders who insult their intelligence with diversions. The $11 million diversion is a failed attempt to rewrite history, and the truth about Malanji’s unexplained wealth cannot be erased.