Pamela Chisumpa Case has more elements than we can perceive
By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
Mobile-money agent Pamela Chisumpa and 13 other girls have been held hostage for months until a good Samaritan helped rescue them.
Sadly, the girls and the country have been let down by institutions.
INSTITUTIONS FAILED THE GIRLS
Let us take a look at institutions that could have helped crack this case.
The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) has technical capacity to trace calls, identify the type of phone used and locate the caller to the nearest cell sites.
As heard from the victim families, the abductors called family members and demanded that money be sent through mobile money to the numbers given.
To get both a simcard and mobile-money account, requires at registration, identity and contact address of the owner of the account to be submitted.
Consolidated efforts with the mobile phone companies could have helped.
The Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) can trace registration numbers of vehicles and locate them to the registered owners.
Victims have said that they took number plates and type of models of cars used by the abductors and sent them to family members.
Even where fake registration numbers have been used, RTSA can help especially with model of cars used.
The Police have demonstrated that they can trace cyber criminals especially those insulting the President in Criminal Defamation of the President cases.
The Zambia State Intelligence Service can help gather intelligence information related to any activity.
COVER-UP
At the scene, a suspect was picked up. He was later linked and identified as an active member of the ruling party.
At this stage, it’s premature to conclude who is really involved as this appears to be, not just crime, but also ritual practices especially after finding a coffin and black magic artifacts in the hostage home.
So a set of other suspects could be out there.
Within hours of the girls being found, a story of a video that has emerged.
The video appears stage-managed. In the video, one suspect is in deep sleep and the other other one seems to have a single mission- to exonerate everyone else except himself!
And it appears strange that while the Police failed to arrest the abductors for over six months, they quickly arrested the alleged abductors in Kaoma district within a few hours of the girls being found.
And the alleged abductor in the video seems to have clear intentions…..to close the case!
Who has sent him? Who does he wish to protect? Why does he wish to be the fall guy?
CONCLUSION
We should not politicize this case but we should ensure that the motive behind the abductions is established, culprits brought to book, and the ring of these criminals busted.
The Pamela Chisumpa and 13 others case has demonstrated that the systems failed and someone should be held accountable for this negligence.