BY GIDEON NYENDWA
THE Government should disband the echelon of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) who should be audited because their lifestyles are not commensurate with their earnings, Lumezi Independent Member of Parliament (MP) Munir Zulu has said.
Mr Zulu said there are qualified and capable officers at the Zambia Police and Drug Enforcement Commission to take over the ACC offices should there be a purge.
Mr Zulu said they should be made to account for their wealth before they started harassing other citizens.
Mr Zulu, also revealed that he has been summoned by the ACC and would appear in the New Year, but warned that he had information which would shock people.
He said for instance, “there is a Chelstone office and many are not aware about it and what goes on there. The deals that are struck,” he said.
Mr. Zulu said that officers at the commission have amassed a lot of wealth such that they were driving expensive cars like the SUV Bluetake 2020 model which does not match with the salaries they get.
Mr. Zulu said a lifestyle audit on all ACC officers was a must because there was a mismatch between what they own and what they earn which raises a lot of questions.
“We can’t have people that own things that do not much with what they earn, to fight corruption, that is not possible,” he said.
He said that it does not make sense for officers who earn less but have a lot of wealth that does not much their earnings to be harassing people.
Mr. Zulu said that ACC lacks credibility because the institution had a lot of bad eggs in their system.
He alleged that the institution was corrupt to the core.
He said that he was aware of the Chelstone office and the people ACC deals with at that office but time to expose names and what happens would come.
Mr. Zulu also said that ACC cost the country a lot of money in the Kasaba Bay Project which they ordered to stop on allegations of corruption in 2011, a case which they lost but no one talks about it.
He said that there was no fight against corruption that is happening in the country currently because what was happening was pure witch hunt based on political and tribal lines.
Mr. Zulu said that if ACC was truly fighting against corruption they would have pounced on the minister of Energy Mr. Peter Kapala for the shoddy works he did in a contract he got to construct houses for the people who were displaced to pave way for the construction of the Kazungula bridge.
“The houses were substandard and they are falling. Who is following him on that,” he said.
He said the Minister of Green Economy and Environment Collins Nzovu had a contract to construct the Manyumbi Toll Plaza and the works stopped for a longtime for unknown reasons but no one is questioning him.
“That is corruption on its own,” Mr. Zulu said
Mr. Zulu said that on 29 December, 2021 he received a call from ACC saying that instructions had been given that he should present himself to the commission which he declined because he was in his constituency working.
He said that he knows that ACC has got the power to arrest but he shall not be intimidated by summons at whatever time they feel like.
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