HH’s assets declaration a personal matter – Mweetwa
By Kombe Chimpinde Mataka
UPND spokesperson Cornelious Mweetwa says the PF regime changed the law to make asset declarations of presidential candidates secret.
Mweetwa said calls by civil society organisations for President Hakainde Hichilema to make declaration of his assets and liabilities public would not be a legal obligation but a personal matter.
“The issue I think that we have to deal with and I am happy that you are asking this question because it is something which we must look at in terms of our national interest. The issue we must be looking at is the Access to Information law because as things stand now, the information which we are talking about was declared before ECZ (Electoral Commission of Zambia) and ECZ are the ones in whose possession that information is held custody and they are the ones who know and I don’t know if you can go to ECZ and say I want to see this and if they will be able to give you that piece of information,” he said when he featured on Hot FM on Thursday. “And remember that this was a law which was changed so that only ECZ can have access to this information under the leadership of president Edgar Chagwa Lungu. So these are the effects, when you make law to suit your circumstances. You remember as a result of the calls that ‘president [Lungu] was nobody, that is the language people were using, he
had so much, he has made this much’. Then they amended the law to say that ‘now you can only declare before ECZ and ECZ keeps in confidence that information. I think there is room for us to interrogate this and we should be able going forward to see what the
people want to be done.”
Mweetwa said members of parliament declarations were being discussed by
members of the public because that was provided for under the law.
“I would like to indicate that when all the presidential candidates went to file their candidature, they had to declare their worth in terms of asset portfolios and also debt portfolios as required by law. And two, that all of us constitutional office bearers, within 30 days of our assumption to office, we declared what we were worth and what our liabilities are and named them,” he said.
“And fortunately, we have a President who has never worked in government. This is the first time he is working in government and one year five months down the line, this is a President who does not know what a pay slip looks like because he has never been paid a salary. He has already worked for himself but those calls from some society groups cannot go ignored. They are not legal but they are part of social censure of public transparency in terms of government but those are issues which for now I cannot begin to say, the
President will do this, the President will do that. If there were a requirement at law, I would be magnanimous because when you are in leadership you are guided by what the law says and not what an individual wants but if you are going to ask someone to do something as a way of feeling, whether he feels can do it or not, it is personal. I think I cannot talk more on that basis. I would have spoken more if it was a legal requirement.”
Mweetwa said whether President Hichilema should make his asset declaration or not was a personal decision.
“It is interesting and I would like to answer it in a very honest way. It is something that could be of interest to the people of this
country to know but one which is not a legal requirement. So for that reason, that is personal. I cannot speak on something which requires a personal decision to be made as opposed to meeting a legal requirement. That is what it is but we are in leadership and when people talk, we listen. We have heard,” he said. “Give me time, next time I appear on the show bring that topic I think I should be able to be on firm footing on the same.”
But the host insisted that Mweetwa puts a timeframe to his promise to come back with an answer.
“I like your insistence to timeframe, this is good accountability. Well, give me one month. Is that okay because I know that in the next one month, there will be at least two Cabinet meetings which will give me the opportunity to interact with the President,” he said.
Mweetwa however said the declarations in question can be sought through the
Supreme Court “for now if justification for accessing the same is made”.
“What you are asking that the President should do actually was already done at law, those are in public domain. If you go to the
Supreme Court today, you will find a declaration form today where President HH filed in to say ‘this is my net worth’ in terms of assets, this is my debt portfolio. That information is already in public domain and that is why you find that even president Edgar Lungu, people were able to say he had declared ‘K2 million now he is worth
23 million’. It is because of the declaration which was given,” he said.
Queried again on why people would be demanding information if it was readily available, Mweetwa said, “for President HH to have qualified to be President he needed to have declared to which he did. He did that unless you are saying the President now should pull out that file to say ‘this is how much I declared in 2021 and this year I am worth this much’. Is that what you are asking?”
Mweetwa said corruption in public was being met with zero tolerance posture by the UPND.
“That is why you have seen that even people who are in government, being political appointees of the President or civil servants, once you violate the law then the law takes its course. That was one of the promises the President made,” said Mweetwa.