Northern Province Permanent Secretary Emmanuel Mwamba has described as a scandal the decision by the previous government to spend K16.1 billion to do a 12 kilometres stretch of township roads in the rural district of Luwingu.

Mr Mwamba said it was wasteful to spend K16.1 billion on 12 kilometres of deserted township roads when Luwingu District lacked many basic t hings and infrastructure.

The contract to do the township roads in Luwingu was given by Road Development Agency (RDA) and is being done by Sable Transport.

Mr Mwamba, who is on tour of Luwingu, Chilubi, Mporokoso and Kaputa districts addressed district heads in Luwingu where he said Luwingu District did not have an ambulance, an x-ray department and basic facilities for its hospital at the boma and wondered how a decision was made to do a 12 kilometre stretch costing K16.1billion.

He stated that Luwingu had schools with no desks, and many schools remained with thatched roofs and were experiencing a critical shortage of teacher’s houses.

He also noted that the health centres were far apart to service the huge communities and also had inadequate facilities.

Mr Mwamba feared that the poor state of the Luwingu-Mansa Road which provided a shorter link to Luapula Province was threatened with closure during rainy season.

He bemoaned the state of the only secondary school, Luwingu High School whose infrastructure was in a dilapidated state and had a pupil population of more than 2500.

He stated that the school needed urgent repairs to be done to its roofs, kitchen and dormitories.

Mr Mwamba also directed Chambeshi Water and Sewerage to immediately restore water supply to Luwingu that has gone without piped water for the last eight months after a pump broke down.

He said despite the difficulties, Chambeshi Water and Sewerage was going through, it was unacceptable that the company would allow a community to go without water for such a long time because of a failed pump.
He said his office had written to the Minister of Finance to help Chambeshi Water and Sewerage Company secure US$60million longterm finance with the Africa Development Bank (ADB) to rehabilitate and upgrade the water supply infrastructure in Northern Province.

He said Government had secured similar loans in the recent past and disbursed it to Nkana and Mulonga water companies on the Copperbelt and North-Western provinces.

Mr Mwamba said his office has embarked on a retention scheme in rural areas for teachers and nurses.

He said the scheme when fully fledged would encourage rural communities to nominate eligible persons for training at teacher and nursing training institutions in the province.

He said upon completion, the persons drawn from such rural communities would travel back and work in those communities without deserting them as is the current case for professionals from urban areas posted who abandon their posting because of the harsh environment in these rural areas.

He said in the long term, these measures would ensure that schools and health centres will be manned by qualified staff who come from these areas and would therefore have a genuine commitment to serve their rural communities.

Mr Mwamba also demanded a report from Luwingu District Cooperative Union who are agents of FRA, to provide answers why maize was allowed to be soaked by rains and was lying in unauthorised satellite depots when Government had spent huge sums of money to pay for it.

[Times of Zambia]

FINANCE Bank Zambia (FBZ) Limited chairperson, Rajan Mahtani, has alleged that the former regime under president Rupiah Banda, externalised over K50 billion to the United Kingdom and South Africa at the time the bank was under seizure.

Mr Mahtani claimed that a total of K52 billion was externalised through the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) to named UK and South African-based companies.

He made the allegations at a media briefing in Lusaka yesterday, saying the previous regime separately externalised K17 billion to a London-based company and US$7 million (about K35 billion) to South Africa.

Mr Mahtani alleged that the K17 billion was transmitted to a company in London that was contracted to audit the bank shortly after it was repossessed while a named forensics company from South Africa was specifically contracted to investigate Dr Mahtani and was paid an equivalent of K35 billion ($7 million).

The FBZ chairperson said steps had been taken to ensure that the bank recovered the money because the fees were unjustifiably too high.

Mr Mahtani said what was even more worrying was that the audit was undertaken after the bank obtained a court order to restrain the company from going ahead.

Dr Mahtani also said the decision by the previous government to repossess and sell the bank was ill-conceived and was done to punish him because of the long-standing differences the bank had with a former government official before he joined the government.

He alleged that the official borrowed a substantial amount of money from the bank to purchase a house and never paid back until the board decided to grab a house situated in Lusaka’s Kabulonga area.

On the audit, Dr Mahtani said there had been no firm which had ever charged K17 billion for such services and wondered why the BoZ did not engage a local international audit firm.

He said as board chairperson, he was not involved in the whole transaction about the Kabulonga house and there was nothing legally wrong with the decision by the FBZ.

Dr Mahtani claimed that the sale of the bank to First National Bank at K27 billion was purely a political decision and that within the few months it operated under its original shareholders, the bank had made K60 billion profit.

According to Dr Mahtani, FBZ made minor mistakes because the officials were human beings but such did not warrant the closure of a viable business.?

He said FBZ shareholders, Credit Suisse have resolved to fund the 500 million Euro bonds the Government intended to float and hoped to act as an agent to resell the bonds as a way of showing appreciation to the Zambian Government which had reversed the transaction.

Dr Mahtani also said FBZ planned to commence the process of listing on the Lusaka, London and Johannesburg stock exchanges and that 40 per cent shares would be off-loaded by 2014.

He said he faced hardships to seek medical treatment when he was operated on at Milpark Clinic in South Africa while officials from the Drug-Enforcement Commission (DEC) followed him without good reasons.

Dr Mahtani said the bank was expected to pay K20 billion in taxes by the end of the year while the number of workers would rise to around 1,000 before the end of next year.

Meanwhile, FBZ has, with immediate effect, increased salaries for its 734 workers by K2 million across the board with the lowest paid getting at least K4.5 million per month.

[Times of Zambia]

Issued by George Chellah( special assistant to the President on press and public relations)

Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane, the former Minister of Finance under the MMD government has disputed our factual account that the previous regime illegitimately printed money.

Dr Musokotwane and his colleagues must not panic and resort to half-truths but instead wait for the due process of the law to take its course.
The Republican President, His Excellency Mr Michael Chilufya Sata has repeatedly stated that “this is not a witch-hunt but a legitimate search for the truth.” Let it be known that the President would definitely be the happiest to see that our former leaders are cleared of possible wrong-doing by law enforcement agencies.

Former Finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane is said to have advised President Sata to stop making careless statement on the Kwacha that could jeopardise Zambia’s international position.

Dr. Musokotane said Sata is lying as all the currency which the MMD left in circulation is genuine and he wondered whether Sata would create another unnecessary Commissions of Inquiry for this matter.

Musokotwane challenged the Bank of Zambia to publicly state its position on this matter and say whether the MMD government ever forced the Central Bank to print money.