By Staff Reporter
Economic Front (EF) leader Wynter Kabimba says Edgar Lungu was a bad leader, but it is unfair to say he was corrupt, unless evidence of wrong doing is provided.
And Kabimba said president Lungu does not have the power to lift his immunity and he should stop implying so in his statements, as that power resides with Parliament.
Calling in to Daily Revelation, Kabimba said being a bad leader did not make Lungu to be automatically corrupt.
But Kabimba was asked on his take on the many issues Zambians were raising even before Lungu was removed from office that he presided over a corrupt government and therefore must be investigated.
“It is one thing to say that Edgar Lungu was a bad leader. It is another thing to say that Edgar Lungu was corrupt. The two are different. A bad leader may not necessarily be a corrupt leader. A leader for example who tolerates the perpetuation or violence in the party, the way Edgar did it, may not necessarily be a corrupt leader,” Kabimba said. “So the two in my view are different. To attack the character of the man in terms of his leadership vis-a-vee the allegation that the man committed an offence or a series of offences while holding that office. The two are separate.”
He said it was important that as people talk about the removal of the immunity, they must particularise what the alleged offences could be and not just pushing for immunity lifting in a vacuum.
But asked on the possibility that in the investigations that are being carried out, there could be something that might be pointing towards the former president, Kabimba said the ACC said a month ago that they were not investigating president Lungu, saying if they have reached a point where those investigations have commenced they must tell the public that they were now investigating him.
Put to him that during the time president Lungu was in office, several matters were raised, including the fire tenders, ambulances, drug contracts and the supersonic rise in Lungu’s personal wealth, and that people expected that Lungu would have taken sufficient measures to curb all that as a leader, but Kabimba insisted that Lungu could have been a bad and weak leader, but one could not arrive at the conclusion that that made him corrupt.
“You can’t say because he was a weak leader, because he was a bad leader therefore he was corrupt. No! I think that conclusion is unfair. Or you can’t say because he didn’t fire this minister who is alleged to have been corrupt, therefore he was corrupt. That conclusion is unfair,” Kabimba said, noting that UPND now has an opportunity to finally investigate the issue of the fire tenders and everything else that took place during Lungu’s presidency, saying there was no need for them now to “pander to the public’s perception.”
He said they were in power now and have the instruments of investigations, saying it was now time for “UPND to tell us without prejudicing the investigations”, through the investigating agencies, that they have started the investigations on the fire tenders and other matters, and that at the end of those investigations they can now announce to the public if something was pointing towards Lungu.
He said the whole issue must be clear not to just excite the public.
And Kabimba said the power to lift one’s immunity did not exist in a vacuum.
“(ACC board chairman) Musa Mwenye made the same innuendo. He said if you know that you are clean why don’t you just, you can just say I don’t need this immunity, go ahead and investigate me. There is nothing like that under the constitution,” said Kabimba, saying he had the same problem with the restoration of Banda’s immunity following his acquittal. He said if one were acquitted they did not need any consent judgment to restore their immunity because the basis for what they were investigated upon have proved frivolous.
He said the immunity was not president Lungu’s personal property which he may decide to hand over any time he feels like, as constitution conferred immunity on a sitting president which they go out with after they have served in office, and can only be moved through a resolution of parliament, and once prosecuted successfully they go to prison and if not, the immunity is restored.
He said the lifting of the immunity must state the offences that were alleged to have been committed, saying he did the same when he moved the motion to lift president Banda’s immunity.
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