ABOUT THE CONVICTION OF KAMBWILI: A MORAL, LEGAL AND ETHICAL PERSPECTIVE
Part 1 of 3
*By Sean Tembo – PeP President*
1. The recent conviction of the Party President for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), who is also former Information and Broadcasting Minister in the PF Government, Honorable Chishimba Kambwili, has raised a lot of controversy across the entire country. Was it right to convict and send to prison such a high profile political figure? Was he truly guilty of the alleged offenses or the trial Magistrate was inherently biased against him from the beginning. Did the trial Magistrate really solicit a bribe in return for an acquittal, as alleged by Kambwili, or was he merely trying to muddy the waters because he knew from the word “go” that he was guilty of the offense as charged? Was Kambwili’s arrest, prosecution and subsequent conviction, politically motivated by President Edgar Lungu, as punishment against Kambwili for his several insults against the Head of State, ever since he left the PF and formed his own political party? Or was Kambwili taken out of the political platform in order to weaken the opposition and potentially deprive the opposition UPND and Opposition Alliance of a potential running mate?
2. In this article, l will seek to offer my opinion on the above questions as well as many other inherent questions that have arisen ever since the NDC President was convicted of two charges of forgery and uttering a false document about two days ago, and subsequently sentenced to one year for each count, which will run concurrently which means that he will effectively only serve one year. However, I want to declare from the onset that even though l will make my beat effort to be sincere and objective in this article, l am unable to runaway from the fact that am inherently conflicted. On one hand, Kambwili is a fellow opposition leader with whom a shared a platform on several occasions and what is happening to him could very well happen to myself tomorrow. On the other hand, l have always been nonchalant about Kambwili’s type of politics which has been empty of substantive issues and merely focused on disparaging others. That said, let me proceed and delve into the meat of this discussion.
3. It is always important to start from the beginning. Kambwili was arrested following a complaint that was filed with the Zambia Police Service that he had forged the signature of his son in a “No Change” Annual Company Return that was filed at PACRA in 2013. The complaint was made by the Party President for the Economic and Equity Party (EEP), Mr. Chilufya Tayali. There are several issues that arise here. Firstly, Kambwili is said to have forged the signature of his son, not of some unrelated third party, but his own son. To me, this means that the forgery was done merely for administrative convenience only and without any criminal intent. I am sure that if the son was available, he would have signed for himself, but the son was probably not available and Kambwili needed to file the PACRA return urgently, possibly in order to meet the requirements of a tender or something to that effect. I must say that it is not uncommon for most people that l know to sign on behalf of their children or spouses, especially on documents for a family-owned company. So in this context, there is nothing unusual or blatantly criminal about Kambwili’s forgery of his son’s signature on a PACRA return.
4. The other issue that arises from the above genesis of events is the fact that the complaint, Mr Chilufya Tayali is a political player and was not directly involved with the matter. Additionally, Kambwili’s forgery of his son’s signature is not a matter of public interest as it does not result in the deprivation of any public resources. Here, we are not saying that a political player or any unrelated third party cannot file a criminal complaint with the Police, of course they can, but only in a public interest matter. Otherwise they would have no standing or locus to be a complainant. Additionally, several questions arise about Mr Tayali’s role as a complainant. How did he know that somewhere in the archives of PACRA, there is a “No Change” annual return that had been filed by Kambwili 7 years ago in which he had forged his son’s signature? Is Mr Tayali psychic? Did he have a dream or visions about Kambwili’s forgery in order to know that it existed or was he passing around Longacres area and he smelt the forged annual returns deep in the PACRA archives? It really does not make sense to me how Mr Tayali could have genuinely and innocently come across the existence of this illegality. If the complainant was a PACRA official, then it would have made sense because such a person is expected to have first hand knowledge of annual returns that are filed at PACRA by different entities.
5. The only plausible explanation of how Mr Tayali came across the existence of this illegality that was buried deep in the archives of PACRA for 7 good years is that someone was digging dirt on Kambwili and decided to go through all of Kambwili’s financial and commercial documents with a fine tooth comb and subsequently came across the said illegality. And that someone is definitely not Mr Tayali because a third party cannot go to PACRA and request for a copy of an annual return that was filed 7 years ago for a company that they do not have a direct stake in. You can request for a print out which shows details of the company such as date of incorporation, directors, shareholders etc., but not a copy of the annual return that was filed by a company director or secretary. This means that the only possible person or persons who could have been going through Kambwili’s records with a fine tooth comb are State Agents. The Police, DEC, ACC, Intelligence etc. And if State Agents were sent to dig dirt on Kambwili, it means that they themselves could not proceed to file a complaint against him, otherwise a lot of eyebrows will be raised. Their approach would be to find a gun for hire which they could use, and Mr Tayali would have suited that role perfectly. He is confident, intelligent and has a good understanding of legal processes. Someone who cannot break under heated cross examination in court. By the way, if you dig deep enough, you can be rest assured of finding some dirt on each and everyone of us. Enough dirt to send any of us to prison. Provided you are a human being of adult age, you must have committed an offense somewhere somehow. It just requires someone to search with a fine tooth comb.
6. So if State Agents dug dirt on Kambwili and passed it on to Mr Tayali for him to file a complaint with the police, the question is; who could have sent them and for what purpose? My view is that such a high profile operation could not have been sanctioned by anyone else other than the Head of State; His Excellency Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu, for the sole purpose of taking out Kambwili from the political scene. If this was indeed the sequence of events, then President Lungu is using State institutions to fix his political opponents. This would amount to a gross abuse of authority on the part of the President. In part 2 and 3 of this series of articles, l will look at Kambwili’s trial itself and the drama that was inherent therein as well as the subsequent conviction and sentence.
/// END
SET 16.10.2020