COME CLEAN ON $2.5M SCANDAL, FIC CHALLENGED
By ADRIAN MWANZA
THE Finance Intelligence Centre (FIC) should come clean on the US$2.5 million it allegedly lost in a US$10 million deal to install an Intelligence Management System, New Congress Party president Peter Chanda has said.
Mr Chanda urged Government to act on the matter because Zambians demand to know what really transpired for an institution like FIC which was tracking corruption to be duped.
According to an invoice dated Tuesday, June 27, 2017 captured by the Daily Nation, the contractor demanded to be given 25 percent of the project value of US$10m which was the total amount for the project but they failed to deliver.
FIC is said to have paid named company $ 2.5million for the works but that they disappeared without conducting the said works.
The Centre has in the last few weeks raffled a lot feathers by seemingly going flat out persecuting, fighting and freezing accounts of people purported to be close to former republican president Edgar Lungu or served in the previous regime.
However in a twist of fate the Centre was this time on the receiving end after the purported company dribbled them and could not fulfil its pledge of installing the security system even with the down payment paid with just a balance of US$7.5 million remaining from the total amount.
Several efforts had been made to contact the named company which was required to complete the system installation for the surveillance.
Reliable sources said efforts by the FIC to get the named company’s vice president in Zambia proved futile as he had vanished.
A Daily Nation visit to the FIC office was met with silence.
But Mr Chanda said that the head of State needed to take action by firing the directors at FIC and clean up the institution because the people in charge were incompetent having engaged an organisation that was crooked.
He said that was a serious anomaly which needed to be nipped in the bud because the country risked losing colossal amounts of money.
Mr Chanda said the FIC had gone on rampage demonising people who were perceived to have stolen public resources.
“The Bible says you are supposed to take out a speck in your eye before taking one in another person’s eye that is what is going on at the Centre because they are busy demonising individuals when their closet was dirty,” he said.
Mr Chanda said that FIC needed to come clean over the issue because it was sending a wrong impression to the public.
Meanwhile, the FIC has remained mute over the matter and attempts to get the Director General, Ms Mary Chirwa proved futile.
The institution had been dodging the matter and not responded despite several queries sent and even going to their premises.
