Fri, 29 Sep 2017 14:04:58 +0000
By OSCAR MALIPENGA
HOME Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo has denied ever receiving three vehicles from Grandview International Ltd as a reward for authorizing the U$S42 million fire truck deal and has challenged Chishimba Kambwili to produce Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) records to prove that he owns vehicles he was accused of receiving.
Last week, Mr Kambwili accused Mr Kampyongo of having received three vehicles as a reward for signing the U$S42 million fire truck deal when he was minister of Local Government and Housing.
Mr Kambwili named the vehicles as a Toyota Hilux, Range Rover and Toyota Land Cruiser VX which he was involved in an accident with.
But Mr Kampyongo charged that there was so much hypocrisy attached to issues of corruption.
Mr Kampyongo, who is Shiwang’andu Patriotic Front Member of Parliament, said corruption accusations were a way of recruiting cabinet ministers to the opposition.
Contributing to the motion of thanks to President Edgar Lungu’s address to Parliament, Mr Kampyongo said government would not be intimidated by those accusing them of being corrupt.
Mr Kampyongo said those who were accusing cabinet ministers of being corrupt would not succeed to bring the ruling party down.
“So I am telling you that you won’t bring us down, we know of the few people who want to bring Chagwa’s soldiers down but I can assure you that we shall fight and we will not fail,” Mr Kampyongo said.
He said the Head of State was very serious about the fight against corruption.
“Mr Speaker, when you see a President firing one of his own lieutenants from Cabinet on allegations of corruption, what more can he show?
“And I want to say this that here in this Chamber we make laws, so when you want to come and accuse this minister standing here, you have to stand firmly and say ‘this act was abused by this Honourable minister of this ministry, in this line’ other than just jumping on the anthill and join all those that are not well informed,” he said.
Mr Kampyongo said there was an Abuse of Office Act which followed any person in case he/she went astray from their area of jurisdiction.
“Mr Speaker, the President did allude to the fight against corruption in his speech and if there is a leader who is so firm about his stance against corruption, I think we all know where the President stands and having been here for six years, Mr Speaker I want to put it on record on how disappointed I have been to see the hypocrisy that we have attached to the issues of corruption, I was at the backbench there, progressed to the middle until I got here.”
“The debate we have heard here of accusing those in the front bench…we have even had newspaper presentations laid on the table, we had a minister sitting where my elder brother is sitting, everyday it was ‘no this is a corrupt minister’ from our colleagues in the UPND, (no he has given himself contracts’ and we had all the papers flying around here. But what happened? The moment he crossed the floor to there, all the corruption finished and they all started calling him a great leader so he could win a slot,” Mr Kampyongo said.
He said former minister of tourism Sylvia Masebo was accused of corruption but when she was on PF side there was no corruption.
But the moment she crossed over here, everything changed, the cases in court became solidarity.
“It’s not only that Mr Speaker the catalogue is long but what I am saying Mr Speaker is that the issue of corruption is a policy matter and some of us have been personally accused and have heard things concocted,
“That is why I am asking that maybe it has become a scheme of recruiting ministers, when you cross over to the other side and they bombard you then the corruption starts. But when everything is said and done, some of us will be among the last men and women standing because we know where we stand in serving our people” Mr Kampyongo said
