Thursday, March 28, 2024

FIC Fallout Proof of constitutional systems failure resulting from constitutional lip-service democracy

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Green Party leader Peter Sinkamba
Green Party leader Peter Sinkamba

As the Green Party, we think that the political fallout of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) is a text-book example of the English adage which states that too many cooks spoil the soup. We also believe that the confusion surrounding the role of FIC is a constitutional systems failure resulting from constitutional lip-service democracy.

Furthermore, believe that the FIC fallout justifies the Green Party 2016 election manifesto on the defence and security cluster wherein we proposed that if it formed government, we would have amalgamated the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC), the Zambia Security Intelligence Services (ZSIS) and Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) to transform them into an economic, trade and financial crimes agency. Here is why.
The genesis of the FIC fallout is public dissemination of the trends report. The Attorney General and the Director of the Financial Intelligence Centre collectively disseminated the FIC trends report. In fact from TV and other visual aids, it is shown that the report was launched by the Attorney General, who, according to the Constitution, is the legal chief adviser to Government. At the same event, the Attorney General reportedly informed the nation that he many times advises the investigative institutions to drop cases.

Meantime, all the criticism is focused on the FIC. Is it not the Attorney General who launched the trends report? Is it not the constitutional responsibility of the Attorney General to give advice to FIC on implications of the dissemination of the report? Is it not the responsibility of the Director of Public Prosecution to advise investigative agencies which cases to prosecute and which not to? Why is it that all the criticism focused on FIC? Why not the Attorney General who launched the report? Is this not the case of shooting the messenger? Why is criticism by the presidency, and other executive agencies, paying a blind eye to the Attorney General’s role in the dissemination of same report when the Attorney General was the key player?

The confusion surrounding the FIC debacle is proof of constitutional systems failure. This failure has resulted from constitutional lip-service democracy. The English say too many cooks spoil the soup. This means that when there are too many people involved in trying to do the same thing, the final result will not be good. We have too many institutions doing a small bit of everything on economic, trade, financial crimes that each of one of them is doing, and at the end of the day achieve nothing at all.

Last year, FIC produced and disseminated a similar trends report. There was hullabaloo from the executive led by presidency. This year, again, the executive led by the presidency, is upset, calling the trends report as kachepa spreading falsehoods. This view is supported by one of the cluster members the Drug Enforcement Commission. The DEC is of the view that FIC is an alarmist not only jeopardizing investigations but spreading falsehoods. Neither the presidency nor DEC has mentioned the role of the Attorney General in the whole matrix.

The FIC fallout proves our Green Party 2016 election platform manifesto on the need to amalgamate and transform some of the Chapter 18 institutions, particularly Article 235 investigative institutions which include the Anti-Corruption Commission; the Drug Enforcement Commission; and the Anti-Financial and Economic Crimes Commission (AFECC). Although the Constitution provides for the establishment of AFECC, this is has not be done. Instead there is established elsewhere in the subsidiary legislation this toothless bulldog called FIC which has no powers at all to arrest and prosecute suspects of economic, trade and financial crimes. The report is launched by the Attorney General, who advises investigative wings to drop cases. This is where the problem lies. We apply too much lip-service on constitutionalism, hence, this constitutional systems failure we have found ourselves in.

The Green Party believes that state investigative institutions should be stopped from spying on people, and investigating and prosecuting people solely because they hold different views from those of government on political and socio-economic issues. We also believe that it may be more appropriate to have responsibility prosecuting criminals returned to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

We also believe it is essential to tighten the recruitment and discharge of functions of Chapter 18 institutions to eliminate political patronage and prosecutions which are solely targeted on people holding dissenting views from those of the government of the day.

If we ever form government, we plan institute a review of Chapter 18 institutions. We plan to amalgamate ACC, DEC, FIC, and ZSIS, and transform them into only one anti-economic, trade and financial crimes agency.

We will work to stop our intelligence agencies spying on legitimate, peaceful, political dissenters. We support an inquiry as to whether the Zambia Security Intelligence Services and Anti-Corruption Commission, Financial Intelligence Centre and Drug Enforcement Commission should be transformed. We believe that the responsibility for detecting politically motivated crimes should be returned to the Police.

Also another point to note is that with the liberation wars well and truly over, the new orientation for the ZSIS should be towards economic and not political well-being of Zambia. The Zambia Police can ably handle the latter, without complications. The Police are always in close contact with the politicians through various political processes. They have their own police intelligence unit which could be oriented towards political intelligence. This being the case, the Police is better placed to deal with politicians and political issues. As for anti-terrorism crimes, we believe that should be the responsibility of the military intelligence and should therefore be hived off to be the responsibility of the Zambia Army and Zambia Air Force.

Peter Sinkamba

President

Green Party

9th June, 2019

23 COMMENTS

  1. Weed…Mudala is not good because your suggestion for the merger is simplistic and therefore not attainable…

    • Leave FIC as it is, it is the only credible crime fighting institution left. Amalgamate the others DEC, ACC and ZSIS as they offer very little to the country

    • For a minute I was beginning to think Sinkamba might be a good “President in Waiting” but I am beginning to think otherwise. FIC was set up to mine raw data and give it to appropriate agencies for analysis. In simple terms, it was set up to check for red flags.

      Red flags on their own are simply allegations and until they are proven to be factual and contravening to current statutes and laws, they are simply the smokescreens. Therefore, publishing innuendoes is not only unconstitutional because it takes away the presumption of innocence until proven guilty but is also prejudicial.

      That’s why the real solution is to put FIC under ZSIS so that once the report is completed it is handled to superiors within ZSIC who then check the veracity of these allegations using internal legal…

    • Continued…

      That’s why the real solution is to put FIC under ZSIS so that once the report is completed it is handled to superiors within ZSIC who then check the veracity of these allegations using internal legal frameworks.

      As things stand right now, FIC is defeating the very purposes for which they were formed.

      Epo mpelele,

      BRM

    • @ BR Mumba Sr. It appears you are speaking same language with Sinkamba. FIC should not be whistle blower. Whilstleblowing is for NGOs. FIC should be like police intelligence unit or military intelligence unit which tip General duties police or army for action…intelligence gathering should be a sub-function not core function

    • @Fwany, Weed is good for health while free kachasu dished out by Perpetual Fools headed by Robbing Lungu is nauseating.
      Mr. Sinkamba is the best educated and level headed politician of Zambia. There is no match to him.

  2. Corruption scandals: Social Security Cash Luxury Presidential Jet Ambulances Fire Trucks Mukula Trees Ndola-Lusaka Rd Malawi Maizegate Fuelgate Swaziland landgate Zesco Loans Corruption scandals: Social Security Cash Luxury Presidential Jet Ambulances Fire Trucks Mukula Trees Ndola-Lusaka Rd Malawi Maizegate Fuelgate Swaziland landgate Zesco Loans

    No, the fall is due to powerful corrupt criminals fighting not to be exposed… they would rather their criminal activities remain in the dark. Forget the constitutionalism, I mean these corrupt numskulls wouldn’t care less about the constitution, h€ck they don’t even respect simple rules and laws.

    I agree though that they are sh00ting the messenger. We should be outraged by what the report contains and not who saw it first. It reminds me of cops who pursue whistle blowers and journalists for exposing crime by arguing ‘classified information’, instead of arresting the criminals mentioned in the said document.

    But I disagree though that merging the ACC/DEC/ZP/etc. is the solution to the corruption.

    • Lungu is pronounced criminal. Come 2021 a strong willed Leader will enter statehouse who will first lock up the Lungu and direct intelligence agencies, police, DEC, FIC and all other sources to share notes and come up with reliable information to give to judges to pronounce the Lungu a criminal, enemy of zambia and sentence him 100 years in jail and when through him to hyenas.

  3. I agree. Too many cooks spoil the soup. We need to merge some of these institutions to avoid finger pointing and undermining one anothet as the case is at the moment.

    • If honest Kasanda and Chirwa had prosecuting authority, by now Lungu would have been on the dock. Anyway, days of the jackal are numbered. Come 2021 he is going in for life.

  4. Sir this is diverting our attention.you can debate almagation or not later.our discussion now is who has 49 houses been built for? Who evaded tax,did corrupt ion all amounting to k6.1 billion.is there anyone talking about recovery of these stolen funds.not aya ma ileile

  5. “.,,The Green Party believes that state investigative institutions should be stopped from spying on people, and investigating and prosecuting people solely because they hold different views from those of government on political and socio-economic issues. …”

    All investigative wings in Zambia are used by PF to harass political opponents of lungu…..that is 90% of their work ,
    now when a check of irregular money flows at banks is looked at by FIC , they get upset and feel surpassed.

    • As far as we are concerned, lungu should be on the side of FIC ……..but he is going hysterical, instead of promising prompt and complete investigations …….

      The is looking guilty and seems to be protecting looters and thieves…….

      is he one of them ??

    • Very true, DEC was used by Rupiah Banda to victimise Revered Rajan Mahtani. Reverend created 5000 jobs and since Rupiah did not pay his loan back, his house was forfeited by Finance Bank, Rupiah went after his blood. Lungu is a stooge of Rupiah. Both waiting for 2021 to be jailed by strong leader that will takeover statehouse.

  6. I’m 100% in agreement with you . On this one, you have demonstrated that you understand things far better than most Zambians.
    I only have two differences.Firstly,the FIC is a financial intelligence unit and a member of the Egmont group with a dual role of protecting both the national and international financial system.It must maintain its independence. Secondly,the DEC and ZSIS also have their own specialized functions.
    In line with your suggestion,Anti money laundering unit(under DEC) and the ACC should be merged to form a “FINANCIAL CRIMES PREVENTION COMMISSION” with a clear reporting lines to both the legislature and the Executive.
    The predicate offenses of Corruption,Bribery,Tax evasion and terrorist financing are all financial crimes which should be handled by one entity.

  7. I strongly disagree with Peter here, clearly he is not a seasoned senior civil servant or military man ….you can not amalgamate ACC, DEC, FIC, and ZSIS, and transform them into only one anti-economic, trade and financial crimes agency. That’s like stating that CIA, FBI, DEA, amalgamated into one its laughable even on a much smaller context like Zambia…Peter I suggest you bring on Brigadier General Godfrey Miyanda who just de-registered his party as your security consultant, you can not be making such careless statement. I bet you if you attract a large following by 2021 the selfsame security wings would not want you to succeed with such outlandish on security matters.

    • That is right jj

      Politicians the world over would not trust one investigative body …….they need multiple bodies to be fighting over loyalty to the ruling party and leader.

  8. To deter, investigate and prosecute organized crime and terrorism in a country of over 10 million people requires highly specialized agencies.We,in fact need more agencies.The problem is the need for very close collaboration and adequate resourcing amongst them.However,if there is no political will and leadership in combating crime,all these institutions will be useless

  9. Comment:this makes sense, we have too many so called intelligence people who are only interested in political persecution while our millions are being siphoned out by politicians and their cronies

  10. In Zambia, Intelligence means “Donchi Kubeba” – A suppression of access to common information! Intelligence has been abused to conceal high profile crimes in the Executive wing of government! For example, why has ACC, OP, DEC and ZP only decided to do a political search of Amos Chanda’s house now and not when he was still serving? Merging all these agencies won’t make a difference unless we infuse some diversity in the human resourcing of these agencies! If we allow them to only have chaps from a select few regions, they will remain political and irrelevant in safeguarding economic progress of this country! Stealing is in our DNA! Those who expose our stealing become our enemies! How can we develop?

  11. It is true that our Zambia State Intelligence Service is pre liberation mentality.Shinkamba recommend you inside view.Dismantal OP because it’s cadres Dean, FIC is for Zambia!

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