By Daily Revelation Reporter
PF central committee member Raphael Nakachinda has charged that UPND cadres are working in cahoots with some police officers to extort money from some former permanent secretaries and former senior officials at Zesco promising them security in return.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Nakachinda said he had the names of people being extorted but would not reveal them for fear of jeopardising the investigations, and also because it would be risky to mention their names as they are going through “excruciating times.”
He said people just go around to people’s homes in the name of being part of the investigations but “they are UPND cadres.”
“And they go there and start demanding for money and saying if you give us so much money then we are going to do this and all that,” Nakachinda said.
He said some have been extorted of amounts ranging from K100,000 to K400,000.
“They have been going there with police, in cahoots with the police, no, we have come to search and all those things. Then somebody will say no, if you come to the office we can discuss and then they go to the office and start saying to them no, you will be arrested and this will happen. By the time whatever whatever, if you give us some money we find a way to deal with these matters,” Nakachinda said.
In the earlier part of the interview, Nakachinda framed the summoning of former Lands minister Jean Kapata by the investigating wings to answer to various matters, as continued harassment of PF leaders, saying the UPND ran a narrative of saying PF was corrupt but “when they got into government they discovered that that was far from the truth.”
“Yes we are not saying that everybody in Patriotic Front were saints when they were in government. There would have been one or two people that went overboard in terms of their conduct and maybe abrogated a regulation, a rule here and there. But to say that the PF was corrupt I think that is an unfair narrative. So in feeding into that narrative they have continued to harass. They are actually fishing in the dark,” Nakachinda said. “Even Jean Kapata is not an exception, none of us is an exception. Very soon when they have discovered that this is not working because the Zambian people are seeing through these things, I can assure you that the UPND will start targeting people’s lives. These people are so evil that they will start killing people very soon.”
“That’s why today you are having a person who for example, Kalandanya the guy who was contracted by PF to compose campaign songs, dictated by Patriotic Front is being beaten into submission. They have extorted money from him, some of the UPND cadres, those who are even known to have been torturing members of Patriotic Front (PF), some of them are known to have even participated to working together with the police torturing members of Patriotic Front and those close to president Edgar Chagwa Lungu, have been going to these individuals extorting amounts of money and promising them security and protection,” said Nakachinda. “And now we are having songs that are being composed. That’s what the UPND are aiming at. They want everybody to start singing their song, including Patriotic Front and we are saying no, we will not succumb to that and start singing a song of one party state. That we will not do.
He said letters have been written to the police hoping that the police will act, and if they do not act as expected it will be considered that they too are accomplices to those.
