By Staff Reporter
Raphael Nakachinda has charged that former KCM provisional liquidator Milingo Lungu was removed from KCM in order to create a shortcut for the special purpose vehicle to bring back Vedanta through the back door, and there is “very high probability the President himself is interested in that special purpose vehicle.”
And Nakachinda said the Milingo-DPP issue was too petty to preoccupy Zambians, saying “the real corruption is in the billions that we keep on ushering in the palms and laps of foreigners.”
Nakachinda also charged that “President Hichilema has been undressed” over how fundamentally wrong the state institutions are operating, “where the ACC, DEC, police have now been brought under his armpits, and where the deputy IG had more power than the IG because he served directly under the President’s office.”
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Nakachinda said there is a haste to give back KCM to Vedanta, which he said has been oppressing the people of Zambia where they could not benefit from their most prized possession.
“But this is where clearly Mr Hakainde Hichilema has gone to bed with these people and we are aware of a special purpose vehicle that has been created to try and smokescreen as though it’s not Vedanta that’s come, like it’s a new company that has come, when in fact it is the same people, and a very high high probability that even the President himself has an interest in that special purpose vehicle,” Nakachinda said. “And my brother, even if you are buying a wheel barrow, you will take time to go and check the condition of that wheelbarrow whether the wheel is operating properly and all the necessary parts of that wheelbarrow are functioning. If you can do that for a wheelbarrow you can do that for a chicken, you can do that for a cow that you want to buy.
“Can you imagine what it would take to do the due diligence to establish the viability of running a big mine like KCM? It’s not a one man’s programme. It’s not a two man’s programme. It would take not less that eight months to do a proper due diligence to determine the copper ore, the lifespan of that copper ore and the equipment and all that. You have to have a thorough process of examining this mine using a multifaceted group of experts. So if it was a new company that is what basically will be done. But if it’s a company that already cut a deal it can only speak to the fact that that particular company already knows the lifespan of that particular mine. And the suspicion can only be that this is the same people that were running that mine who were declaring losses consistently and now they want to come through the back door because they sponsored the current government financially and otherwise at a time that they were campaigning. So we can’t be having people who are puppets of capital.”
Asked if he was implying that that was why Milingo claims a plea bargain was entered into with those in government to get him out of KCM in return for providing him with the immunity from prosecution, Nakachinda said: “Yes! Yes! Yes! Milingo was removed from there because they wanted a shortcut. They are looking for a shortcut to finalize that deal, so the Milingo issue and Zambians sometimes we fight wrong battles. The Milingo-DPP issue those are minor issues. Even the so-called fight against corruption became Milingo is believed to have gotten K4.4 million and so on, Zambians we preoccupy ourselves with petty, little little issues. The real corruption is the billions of dollars that we keep on ushering in the palm and laps of foreign entities and that is where the KCM issue comes in. Our people in Chingola, Chililabimbwe on the Copperbelt are going to continue suffering whilst somebody has ushered billions of dollars into the palms of a foreigner. That is where the real fight should be for Zambians.”
Nakachinda said there was something fundamentally wrong in the way the law enforcement agencies were operating.
“Mr Hakainde Hichilema has taken the ACC to State House or community house. He has taken the DEC to community house. He has, though people may not see it, but he has also taken the police to State House or community house by appointing a deputy Inspector General of Police to be under his office. That in itself has already created a very unprecedented line of authority because Kajoba is just ceremonial. The real IG is the guy under his armpit. That in itself has created a problem because everything they are doing they are getting instructions from the President,” Nakachinda said. “So the President cannot escape embarrassment when he gives instructions that in this case are instructions that like it has been exposed in the Milingo case, that borders on compromising the cause of justice. The President is the final authority in this land. He is supposed to be the final place of appeal in this land…If the President is the one instructing ‘go and seize Bowman’s house’. He is the one who is instructing go and arrest that one, what will those officers for example, where do they have a place of appeal? Because they can’t even listen to their superiors because the final man has spoken.”
Nakachinda continued.
“And if the final man has instructed them based on half baked information and they find that there is nothing there who looks bad? It’s the President. So the President has undressed himself by micromanaging everything, including investigations, arrests and all that because when those officers find out that the instructions were erroneous they start losing confidence in the command, and this command is coming from the President,” said Nakachinda.
