JACK Kalala has challenged former republican vice-president Enoch Kavindele to be honest about Frederick Chiluba’s proclaimed innocence and subsequent acquittal on corruption charges.
During late president Chiluba’s memorial service last week, Kavindele accused late president Levy Mwanawasa of ‘falsifying’ grounds on which the former’s immunity was removed by parliament.
Kavindele called for the restoration of Chiluba’s immunity since he was acquitted of all criminal offences.
Reacting to Kavindele’s message, Kalala, Mwanawasa’s former special assistant for project implementation and monitoring, said it was wrong for someone who held high office in government to be malicious.
“Honourable Kavindele is not being sincere, he’s being dishonest to himself, to the people of Zambia, and indeed the relatives to the late president Chiluba. He’s being unfair to him and to them,” Kalala said. “And I also want to advise the relatives to the late president that when they hold this memorial service, their objective should not be to fight president Mwanawasa or to try to launder president Chiluba. Let them focus on the good things that he did, other than talking about that issue which went to court, because if they want to malign president Mwanawasa, we are also going to defend him and defend what he did.”
He challenged Kavindele to explain why he voted for the removal of Chiluba’s immunity if he was convinced that the man was innocent.
“And, also, the lifting of the immunity was not done unilaterally, the procedure was followed. Parliament was asked to remove that and the matter was debated there without interference. And what should be appreciated and understood, at that time the same person who is trying to champion the cause of president Chiluba was vice-president. Enoch Kavindele was vice-president and Leader of the House,” he said. “So, he’s the one who led the debate in parliament. And even after the presentation of the case, he took it up. As vice-president, every Wednesday he was having meetings with president Mwanawasa. Now, if he had felt that Chiluba was being mistreated, he would advise the president, but he did not do that. He should have advised the president not to proceed with the matter.”
Kalala further asked why Kavindele could not defend Chiluba in parliament.
He also requested Kavindele to explain why he did not testify for Chiluba in court.
“And in parliament he should have defended Chiluba because he had served under Chiluba as vice-president. But he didn’t defend Chiluba in parliament. And if you go today to parliament to find out how he voted, him as vice-president and leader of the House, he voted for the lifting of the immunity. President Mwanwasa was not in parliament to vote for the lifting of the immunity; Kavindele was there,” Kalala said. “And when president Chiluba was being prosecuted, why didn’t Kavindele offer to testify for president Chiluba to prove his innocence? Why didn’t he go to court to testify for president Chiluba, especially after he had been dropped as vice-president? So, he’s just being malicious. If president Chiluba was indeed innocent as they put, wasn’t Zanaco managing director Samuel Musonda jailed for taking money to Chiluba? How can you convict a messenger and you leave out the receiver of the money? Musonda was just a conveyor but he served a jail term.”
Kalala challenged proponents of Chiluba’s innocence to explain where he got money that he put in a government bank account.
“Those people who want to launder that president Chiluba did not steal, can they tell the nation where Chiluba found the US $8 million which was in the Zamtrop account? What is the source? Can they tell because at State House he wasn’t running a business there, no! He was running the nation. Let them produce, if he was running a business, the statements for the company where he got the $8 million that he put in the Zamtrop account,” Kalala said. “And why put his personal money in a government account? Can a managing director put his personal money in a company account? It’s not possible. If it’s said that somebody donated that money, some head of state donated $8 million, which head of state can donate $8 million to another one? For what? Can they explain! Let them produce the paper trail to prove that indeed this money was genuinely earned and how it entered into that account. That’s what they should be telling the nation.”
He reminded Chiluba’s supporters that the man was in fact convicted for corruption in a UK court.
Kalala alleged that there were senior government officials who engineered Chiluba’s acquittal.
“He was convicted in the UK trial and he refused to defend himself. The government offered that we are going to buy a ticket for him and provide everything so that he could go there and defend himself, but he refused. They said, ‘okay fine, if you can’t travel let’s do a video arrangement so that you can testify from here in Zambia’, he also refused. He was legally convicted in the UK, so they cannot say that he was innocent,” said Kalala.
“Now, on the acquittal in Zambia, that acquittal was dubiously done. We know what happened. Before the judgment was passed while they were reading the judgment here in Lusaka, president Rupiah Banda talked about it in Kabwe at a public rally. How did he know about the outcome of the case? Now, let me state here that that time I was not even in government. There were four people who engineered that acquittal; two are late and two are still alive. And they did it for political purposes. We know their names; they were all in government. Three were politicians, one was a very, very senior civil servant but now he is retired.”