By LUCY PHIRI
SOME of the units which are part of the now infamous 48 (51) houses had their electricity applications made in the names of Susan Sinkala and Charlie Chitala, a Zesco employee has told the court.
Susan Sinkala is the wife of Charles Loyana, accused of owning the said properties believed to be proceeds of crime.
Zesco head of customer services manager narrated how the company received a warrant from Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) requesting for information concerning the meter numbers of the infamous 48 houses (now 51 houses) in Chalala area.
This is in a matter in which Loyana, a senior accountant at the Ministry of Finance and his wife Susan Sinkala, an assistant accountant at the Ministry of Works and Supply, are facing charges of possessing and concealing properties worth K37 million suspected to be proceeds of crime.
The couple pleaded not guilty to the charges before magistrate Faides Hamaundu.
Kennedy Chisanga, 46, of Woodlands, Chalala, a witness testified that in 2019 ACC requested for details registered at Zesco for the three meter numbers which were under the names of Susan Sinkala and Charlie Chitala.
“I provided the information to the ACC, and they requested that they wanted the active form for electricity connection,” he said.
He said ACC also requested Zesco to avail the meter numbers and actual documents concerning the meter numbers.
“I checked on our database called customer management system and I managed to retrieve the details under 32 of the meters shared by Zesco. Four applications were rendered to Zesco which I broke down as follows, first was to connect supply points, second was to connect 13 supply points, third connected one supply point and lastly connected seven supply points which made a total of 32 points,” he said.
Mr Chisanga said out of four applications, three were registered under Susan Sinkala. And the application for the third unit was received under Sinkala by Zesco in 2014.
“The fourth for the seventh unit was received in 2017 and the name for the forth application was registered under Charlie Chitala. I compiled the information sharing all the details pertaining to the 32 connections that Zesco did,” he said.
He said in his testimony that Zesco managing director shared all the information with the ACC through a letter.
He said he managed to submit all the applications to ACC as per instruction.
And in cross examination, defence lawyer Willis Muhango requested to know where the documents stated that his clients were owners of the said houses.
Mr Chisanga in response said it doesn’t show the owners but shows the landlord’s names as Susan and Charlie.
“So are landlords the same as owners?” he asked.
“No,” the witness said in response. Why didn’t you investigate so as to verify the data?
Mr Chisanga said in response that his mandate was to connect and make money not doing verification or verifying details for the owners of the house.
