THOSE GETTING COMPENSATIONS RISK BEING PROSECUTED AND JAILED IN FUTURE – HOWARD KUNDA
…says UPND is looting public resources through compensations
Ndola, Thursday, November 30, 2023
Zambia Wake-Up Party (ZAWAPA) President Howard Kunda has criticized the huge compensations being awarded to Government officials and UPND supporters by courts.
The Lusaka High Court has entered a consent judgment awarding UPND Lusaka Province Chairperson Obvious Mwaliteta and James Sichomba K900,000 each as compensation for wrongful prosecution.
Furthermore, Transport Minister Frank Tayali was this week awarded K450, 000 by the Lusaka High Court on account of the trauma occasioned to him by the police who pointed a gun at him in 2020.
Mr. Tayali filed a claim for compensation in the court for the incident that occurred when the Minister accompanied President Hakainde Hichilema then as opposition leader for interrogations at the Police Headquarters in Lusaka.
But Mr. Kunda has question the compensation arguing that it amounts to looting public funds.
“I am saddened by the issue of these huge compensations; I think our country is worsening in terms of governance. You can’t imagine that this is the kind of change the people of Zambia voted for, the change that we should put money in the pockets of these leaders in this manner. I think they should be ashamed of themselves by wanting to loot the resources of the country through this same compensation,” Mr. Kunda said.
“I think that our country deserves better and I would want to tell the Zambian people that these are things we have seen for ourselves and come 2026 we need to remove this Government without any remorse. They have shown us that they are just a bunch of people that want to loot the country in form of compensation.”
The former Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee Chairperson warned that people getting huge compensations risk being prosecuted and jailed in future.
“If our forefathers who fought for our independence resorted to wanting to get compensation after independence how much money were we going to remain with? All the money would have gone to compensate freedom fighters. These compensations by this government are day light robbery and they shouldn’t even defend themselves. This is something all of us must be against. When ZAWAPA is voted in office in 2026 everyone who has stolen money from the people of Zambia in this way of compensation will not only pay back but also be jailed,” Mr. Kunda stated.
You’re just a mad man that profited from the PF Govt.
Your mother was the conduit for laundering PF money from corruption. We know all that.
You mistreated and arrested people illegally so thought that counted for nothing!
We are still dealing with your mother’s case and she’ll surely end up in jail looking at the evidence that we have! You idyot.
These Compensations if not handled properly will start something we may fail to control.
Even those who died to liberate Zambia will have to be compensated!
Only UPND members or Tonga/Lozi people are entitled to compensation.
We have a totally useless president.
They formed the majority membership and you even called it a tribal party. They ended up being killed or maimed or traumatised while you from acceptable tribes to PF rejoiced, accessed wealth and moved freely.Lusaka’s properties are owned by PF aligned tribesmen; except for those that bought from privatised firms.You never realised how the rule of law would see these marginalised tribes receive compensation for their unfair suffering
No my friend. We all suffered under PF. We got detained and we had guns pointed at us daily.
But somehow, only your tribe or UPND members are getting compensated, illegally, might I add.
You make it sound like it was only Tonga or UPND people that got victimised by PF, or that it was only them that voted for Hakainde. You forget we all voted PF out.
Hakainde has no shame at all. This looting of our treasury will land him in jail, where he truly belongs.
A can of worms has been opened in the country over these compensations, and things will spiral out of control. The sad part is that no due process of law , through a complete Court case is being considered when entering into these consent judgements. And what guidelines are they using to come up with these Amounts? Mapenzi’s family gets K3MIL for the loss of their daughter..HH’s Co- accused properly charged and detained for putting the 6th President’s life in Danger, they get K6.4MIL each?? Where is the logic? Are the amounts being calculated on how close one is to HH? This doesn’t make sense.
No wonder this UPND party has all along been saying they were in a Liberation Struggle…It’s like the 1964 Independence wasn’t recognised in some regions. To them Liberation came on 12th August 2021..Hence the looting of our resources for their Liberation Heroes , so called. There is more to the UPND project than meets the eye…I feel sad for the true heroes and heroines who suffered for this country, whose lives gave us our destiny, lying in unmarked graves somewhere…only for some thugs and scoundrels, many of them violent mapatizya formulated thugs , to be rewarded for Thuggery. Sad.
The cardinal point here is the nature of cases, for example, someone accused of treason may not be compared with someone who was pointed a gun at. If one is convicted with treason then it’s bad news because what follows is death by hanging. So if the State fails to produce evidence for your case, and you sue it and win the case, the amount for your compensation may be bigger than those with none treasonable charges. I still maintain that the genesis of all this is PF and not UPND. As Kabimba put it, under PF there was total breakdown of the law and order. Beginning from UNIP, the country has never seen such degree of lawlessness such as we saw under PF reign. They could do anything to anyone because they were not accountable or answerable to anyone. The number of cases can show how may people were abused under PF. However I agree that some amounts could be abnormally high and it’s high time that we put a standard on compensation law through parliament or the constitution. Let some clauses be put in our constitution for both treasonable and none treasonable cases. For example none treasonable cases should not exceed 500,000 and treasonable cases should not exceed 1.5 million. If we do that, I believe it will greatly help us and put to rest all these controversies that we are having. Alternatively the same cases can be reviewed before the money is given to the recipients and see if any reduction can be made, there is no harm with that. The other option could be the recipients themselves especially those ba ma six million, let them be patriotic enough and surrender back some of the money to the state and all Zambians will appreciate them. Much as we work to develop our mother Zambia, we can also sacrifice and die for our country.