By Patson Chilemba
PF founder member Charity Banda says no one should question former first lady Esther Lungu over the $400,000, saying even cadres like herself would receive “tokens” from people to speak on their behalf with those in authority over certain favours.
Speaking with the Daily Revelation on the $400,000 Esther concealed with her relatives, Banda reasoned that Esther could have received the money from several “well meaning sources” and could have decided to keep the money with her relatives because she never expected that president Edgar Lungu would lose the elections, and people might have raised all sorts of suspicions if she started rushing the money into the banking sector upon the loss.
She said when people were in power they receive a lot of favours from people wanting to associate and have access to them, saying she would also as a mere cadre receive favours from people to speak on their behalf like those who were still waiting for payments on the contracts they had carried out with public institutions.
“Even as a common person people would always want to associate with me even by giving me money. Like someone might have carried out a contract with government and they were not getting their money and probably because they thought I might help, that person will approach me by giving me a token,” Banda said. “There are people trying by all means and need to be close to them because they are in power … Like one time, I am a cadre, for me we went to the United States with the first lady during the time there was a General Assembly. People would come to me and say ‘I want to talk to ba mayo’. Just talking to a simple person like even without asking, you see someone just giving me $200. Would I say no that it is corruption?”
Banda argued that no issue should be made out of the $400,000 and that President Hakainde Hichilema would one day reap the bad she said he was doing to Lungu and Esther, because even he too could be in for some favours the people doing to him.
“Where would the first lady go to steal money? In many cases out of goodwill, because people want to associate with those in power. There was the issue of (former fist lady) Thandiwe, she had those privileges … In most cases you might find that she didn’t even have anywhere to use this money for because of the many privileges these people enjoy. And it’s only two years they have been out of office,” said Banda.
