FORMER president Frederick Chiluba's claim to money in the controversial ZAMTROP account following his acquittal from criminal charges has caused considerable mayhem in the public domain.

Dr Chiluba was charged with theft of $500,000, an indictment he was cleared of after the prosecution failed to prove the allegation beyond all reasonable doubt.

He now wants the Government to give him back his money.

But the feeling of those contending is that Dr Chiluba stole public funds and therefore has no right to claim any money that may be sitting on the ZAMTROP Account.

The question is, whose money was in the ZAMTROP Account and what were the sources?

In a previous article it was established that the ZAMTROP was an operational account of the Zambia Security Intelligence Service (ZSIS) and was administered solely by the director general who at the time was Xavier Chungu.

The Account was held in Zambia National Commercial Bank (ZNCB), London branch.

The Supreme Court in the 2002 presidential petition of Anderson Kambela Mazoka and others v Levy Mwanawasa established that the money in the ZAMTROP Account had sources other than Government.

It will be recalled one of the pleadings in the petition was that Dr Chiluba as incumbent president used the Government money to campaign for Mr Mwanawasa, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD)'s presidential candidate.

According to Chungu in answer to an inquisition as to the source of funds in the ZAMTROP Account, there was more than one source, some of the money came from Dr Chiluba's friends and well wishers while some of it was his (Dr Chiluba's) personal money.

Furthermore, Dr Chiluba in an unsworn testimony said he used the ZAMTROP account on advice of Chungu and that money from private sources was paid directly or transferred into the account.

This piece of evidence was corroborated by forensic audits conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, Bank of Zambia (BoZ) and Grant Thornton, which confirmed the existence of money from both Government and private sources in ZAMTROP.

The audit revealed that the total balance in ZAMTROP was $52 million, out of which $43 million was from the Ministry of Finance and the rest between $8-9 million was from private contributors.

This trend appeared to be the norm, rather than the exception, because in his testimony in the Chiluba case, ZSIS Director General Regis Phiri said under the ZSIS Act there was nothing wrong in putting funds from private sources or money meant for the President in the ZAMTROP Account.

Mr Phiri said there was no law that prohibited the receipt of help, money and gifts by the president or how they were managed.

How and what went into the account was the preserve of the director general who commanded and controlled the service.

In a case of theft, the money ought to have moved without authority but from the evidence it is clear that whatever funds went into and out of the ZAMTROP account were made on the instruction and with the authority of the director general and the bank managers.

BOZ senior inspector, Maulu Hamunjele confirmed this during trial.

His testimony not only proved that there was money from both Ministry of Finance and private or third party sources but also that the movement of that money was based on instructions from Chungu with the full knowledge of the bank managers in London.

"$9,000,000 went into the account from third party sources. More than $8.5 million came from private sources and he (Hamunjele) did not find out what these monies were meant for or how they were used.

"He did not reconcile the monies from the third party sources and Ministry of Finance. He said it was not necessary because the scope of his was limited to what the investigating officers asked of him," reads the judgment.

ZNCB branch manager Beauty Kaluba in her statement recorded by the Taskforce on Corruption/Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) also acknowledged the existence of private money in the ZAMTROP Account.

Just as was observed in the last article, that neither Chungu who was managing the account nor Ms Kaluba or operations manager Elaine Bennett were called to testify in court so also the question begs why institutions that audited the accounts were not called as witnesses?

In the absence of these key witnesses, how was the court to prove that money was stolen or indeed moved illegally?

In our view, failure to call pertinent witnesses proved fatal to the outcome of the FJT Chiluba case.