THERE’LL BE MORE CHAOS …under UPND than in the PF – Changala
By Ernest Chanda
GOOD governance activist Brebner Changala has warned that there will be more chaos under UPND than there was in the PF government.
He says the UPND has started abusing the law more than the PF did.
Changala cited the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) where President Hakainde Hichilema has not yet appointed the chairperson and the vice despite not extending the contracts of those who were there.
“Now, PF we knew it was a criminal organisation and I still believe that very strongly. One thing that pains me is that I didn’t expect the new dawn administration under Mr Hakainde Hichilema to walk the same route. He’s a man who campaigned on the restoration of the rule of law. What has happened to the DPP is the same chaos he has created at ECZ, the Electoral Commission of Zambia,” he said. “How do you remove commissioners before you find replacements? How do you place the chief administrator of ECZ, forced to resign and leave a vacuum there, basically allowing the Executive to run an electoral body? They are running it and they cannot deny. There will be more trouble than Edgar Lungu did if they are not careful, because they keep on believing that they are smart. I don’t think that’s the way you can abuse the law. And I don’t think that is a smart way of abusing the law.”
Changala questioned the rationale of removing ECZ chairperson justice Esau Chulu and his vice Emily Sikazwe when the President did not have alternatives.
“What was so urgent that judge Chulu and Emily Sikazwe must be hounded out without replacements? What was so urgent other than treachery on display,” he wondered.
On proposals to change the system of appointing the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) so that the office bearer operates like the Attorney General who leaves office together with the appointing authority, Changala refused vehemently.
He said the nation cannot allow such, insisting that the DDP shall remain a constitutional office just like judges.
“That will not be allowed. That is exactly what these politicians want. They want a user-friendly DPP. That cannot be allowed and it’s never worked that way all over the world. The DPP must see through all administrations like the judge. Once they win the way they are doing it, attacking the DPP, finding complainants and financing complainants to the JCC… By the way, the JCC is loaded with UPND sympathisers,” Changala charged. “Do you know the danger? They are going to attack now the bench. They are going to isolate a certain judge, and I’ve seen it has started. Isolate a certain judge, report them to the JCC and from JCC they will not survive. And there will be a purge on the bench. Watch the space. These are criminal syndicates that are being organised behind the scenes. I have seen judge Mungeni [Mulenga] is under siege and being called a PF surrogate. And it’s not going to end, get it from me. They will find a useful idiot to go to JCC, knowing very well that at JCC Mungeni will be crucified. She’ll be hanged dry there because that JCC, the composition is equally worrisome.”
Changala alleged that there are UPND cadres at the Judicial Complaints Commission (JCC) who are given assignments to carry out.
“There are party officials there, hardcore UPND, who are loyal to the party president. And when the party president gives them assignments, they are going to mutilate the Constitution,” Changala said. “So, when they succeed on the DPP chambers they are going to invade the judiciary and judges there will have a tall order. And the DPP chambers cannot be aligned to the term of office of a sitting President, no. It must override every administration because it has no business with the Executive.”
Asked why the position of DPP has been politicised since the country’s return to multipartism, Changala cited selfishness of politicians.
“The office of DPP has been highly politicised. It has been politicised by the Executive to be used only by the Executive. For the Executive, any individual that they perceive to have a problem either through criminality, corruption for their hatred, they want the DPP to prosecute that person at all cost even when the independent mind of the DPP says otherwise. The political and executive pressure on that office is becoming too evident, and the DPP’s office is under attack,” Changala explained while giving an example dating back to the Levy Mwanawasa administration. “When Mukelabai Mukelabai was DPP, there was a task force [on corruption]. That task force, and this is what put Mutembo Nchito in problems. That task force was an ad hoc assembly of lawyers and law enforcement officers. There was a substantive DPP there whose constitutional power was to see which matters go to court and which ones don’t go to court. And this is where they started accusing Mukelabai Mukelabai that he was meeting privately with the accused; one of them being Xavier Chungu.”
He recalled what happened after Mukelabai was removed from the position of DPP in 2003.
“Fast forward, Mukelabai was hounded out. And there came Caroline Sokoni, then the current judge Chalwe Mchenga. Mchenga was DPP from Mwanawasa, through [to] Rupiah Banda. When Mr [Michael] Sata came to power in 2011, he negotiated the movement. It was a decent move for Mchenga to move from the DDP’s office to the bench. There was no controversy or animosity,” Changala said. “Now, the incompetent Edgar Chagwa Lungu had a team of criminally minded lawyers who plotted against Mutembo Nchito and they managed to convince the Executive to have Mutembo Nchito removed. But he was not only removed legally or in a decent manner. He was dragged to the police – the police that he controlled – was made to rise against him using the dirty Executive hands. And Mutembo Nchito was hounded out and the tribunal report hidden from the nation. And yet they claimed they were doing it in public interest. How do you hide what is in public interest?”
He also explained how the recently removed DPP Lillian Siyunyi came into office under former president Lungu’s PF.
“And Siyunyi was brought in conveniently by the previous regime. And when she came in I’m one guy along the way who was not happy in the manner she was throwing nolles like confetti at a wedding. Nolles became the order of the day. Nolles defined our justice system,” noted Changala. “When somebody has been taken to court, he’s exhausted financially and abused, before the judgment comes into play a nolle is entered. Not a full discharge but a nolle so that you can’t go and claim compensation for wrongful detention or wrongful imprisonment!”