10 July 2009
FORMER Ministry of Finance and National Planning permanent secretary, Stella Chibanda's brother yesterday testified how his sister was recalled from Washington before she was arrested.
Norbert Mumba, an assistant director for regulatory policy and licensing at the Bank of Zambia (BoZ), was testifying in a case in which Chibanda was jointly charged with former Finance minister, Katele Kalumba and former director of finance, Boniface Nonde.
Others are former chief economist, Bede Mpande, former secretary to the treasury, Benjamin Mweene and former Access Financial Services (AFS) directors, Faustin Kabwe and Aaron Chungu. The seven are facing 21 counts of theft by public servant contrary to Section 29 (1) of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Act as read with Section 41 Act number 42 of 1996.
Mr Mumba who told the court that Chibanda was his older sister said that when Chibanda was permanent secretary in 1999, she informed him that people within her ministry had expressed anxiety over payments being made for security issues. He said Chibanda wanted to know if there could be a way of getting a second opinion on the authenticity of the payments to which he told her that he would do something.
"I then contacted a Mr Edwin Sakala at the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and explained Stella's anxieties over the payments to the Zanaco branch in London." "Mr Sakala asked for documents related to the payments and promised to revert back if he discovered anything but after six months he said he had misplaced the documents and I gave him other documents," he said.
Mr Mumba said that to date, Mr Sakala had not contacted him and he had earlier assured Chibanda that there was nothing wrong with the payments because the State could have stopped them. He said in 2002, when Chibanda was in Washington, police officers contacted him and told him that they wanted a letter to be delivered to her so that she could answer allegations of receiving US$ 6,000 from the Zamtrop account.
He said he told Chibanda about the letter and she agreed to come to Zambia where she was interviewed but when she was due to go back to Washington police officers went to her father's farm where she was picked up.
She was taken to the Drug Enforcement Commission where officers denied her chance to produce documents for her properties. The matter continues on July 13.
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