Sat, 08 Dec 2012 13:48:39 +0000
Saturday, December 8, 2012
MORE opposition political parties have expressed disappointments with President Michael Sata for defending Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba for what they called unruly behavior.
National Restoration Party (NAREP) president Elias Chipimo strongly castigated President Sata for defending Mr. Kabimba’s unruly behavior when he ap
peared for corruption
interrogation at the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) earlier in the week.
President Sata on Thursday defended Mr. Kabimba for ferrying busloads of PF cadres to the ACC offices when he was summoned for interrogations over c
orruption allegations.
He warned that he would not fire or suspend anyone because ACC did not seek for his clearance to have Mr. Kabimba investigated for corruption.
But Chipimo said that Mr. Kabimba’s behavior at the ACC was totally unacceptable and that it was regrettable that President Sata was condoning such instead of condemning his minister.
He said that the reason why stakeholders were calling for the suspension of Mr. Kabimba and Defence Minister Geoffrey Mwamba who were both facing corruption allegations were to restrain them from interfering with investigations.
Mr. Chipimo expressed sadness that the PF leaders were still behaving as if they were still in the opposition even after over a year in government, adding that Mr. Kabimba’s behavior could have been excused if government was six months in office but that they had now matured to behave properly.
“It is unfortunate that President Sata is condoning such behavior.
The reason why we were saying the two ministers should step down is to avoid a situation where they will be intimidating the ACC,” he said.
Mr. Kabimba’s counterpart, GBM who is To page 2
From front page
also facing corruption allegations, appeared at the ACC offices in a low key style devoid of cadres and a media frenzy that characterised the justice minister’s show up.
And Zambia for Empowerment and Development (ZED) president Fred Mutesa has observed that the failure by President Sata to reprimand Mr. Kabimba’s conduct when he appeared for interrogations at the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) showed that there were sacred cows in the fight against graft.
He said President Sata’s action to defend Mr. Kabimba sent wrong signals about the PF government’s commitment to upholding the rule of law and corruption fight.
Mr. Mutesa said that President Sata’s decision not to take disciplinary action against Mr. Kabimba after he refused to be questioned by ACC gave an impression that there were sacred cows in the corruption fight that the PF had championed.
He said that what needed to be understood was that the people of Zambia were not demanding for the suspension of Mr. Kabimba because of the allegations leveled against him, but were not happy with his conduct at the ACC where he was accompanied by cadres.
He has noted that the conduct exhibited by Mr. Kabimba amounts to interfering with the operations of the ACC.
Dr. Mutesa added that leaders in the country should lead by example by ensuring that they uphold the rule of law.
President Sata has stated that he would not suspend any of his ministers being probed by the ACC in the absence of proof of the allegations they were facing.
