By Staff Reporter
Transparency International Zambia president Sampa Kalungu says it’s miserable for a parent like PF’s Charity Katongo to brag about having been a vessel of corruption.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on PF founder member Banda that 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, Kalungu said what Banda said is pure corruption by saying she was receiving money from people in order to speak on their behalf with those in authority in the event they were struggling to get payments for the works they did.
“That level of confession, it’s such elements that we do not want in society. And those people are the ones that cannot only damage the society but actually they can destroy people’s lives directly because she is saying she was paid in order to do something. So she never considered whether what she was saying was some truth or not,” Banda said. “…Definitely that’s not the kind of behavior that we would want to be cultivated in Zambia. Zambia should be based on values. Zambia should be based on laws and respect for self and respect for one another. It’s miserable for a parent in the name of Katongo, if it all what she said was as she has been quoted to brag about having been a vessel of corruption, a vessel of destruction … One would say let us follow that up and see maybe what the law enforcement agencies, but of course we know such kind of utterrances may not take us anywhere. But those are not the values that a nation like Zambia should want to pride itself on.”
Kalungu said utterances such as those coming from Katongo is a culture that had been developed in Zambia over time, saying most political parties for instances had what they called media people who were put on salaries to monitor the radio shows to speak on behalf of parties.
He said such has become common among political parties, saying just recently some so-called callers were even demonstrating.
“So this is a culture that has been created you can say that and it should not be the case because if you are paid to only support something that you don’t even yourself believe in you are actually destroying the nation,” said Kalungu, insisting that people must place a premium on what they believe in and not what they are paid to do as that is damaging society.
He said the same culture has also infected those in the political field who will speak all the positives about the party they have joined, which they viciously attacked not a long time ago.
But speaking with the Daily Revelation, 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 lat 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?”
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