THE Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) says three cases from the 2018 and 2019 Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) reports made it to court while one was closed due to “insufficient evidence”.

And the Commission says out of 745 reports received from the public of suspected corruption last year, just 343 were corruption-related.

In a 2019 end-of-year media brief released, Wednesday, ACC acting public relations manager Dorothy Mwanza disclosed that only three cases among the eight that were disseminated to it by the FIC in 2018 and 2019 ended up in court, with one closed due to “insufficient evidence”.

The 2018 FIC Trends Report released last May recorded an unprecedented K6.1 billion in illicit financial transactions that were committed, a 33 per cent increase in the amount of funds that Zambia lost to financial crimes during that year, from K4.5 billion in 2017.

“Cases from the Financial Intelligence Centre Report: The Commission has also continued to investigate cases of suspected corruption arising from information received from the FIC. As you may be aware, the Commission and the FIC collaborate through a signed Memorandum of Understanding, which provides for sharing of information between the two institutions. Arising from information received from the FIC, investigations were instituted into five cases from 2018, and an additional three cases from 2019. From the five FIC cases that the Commission instituted investigations in 2018, the progress is that, one case is in court, two cases are still under investigations, one case has been determined by the court and one case has been closed due to insufficient evidence,” Mwanza revealed.

“Then from the three FIC cases received in 2019, the progress is that; one case has been concluded and is in court and two cases are still under investigations.”

She further stated that 202 reports have been authorised for investigations of the 343 cases deemed to corruption-related out of the 745 reports received in 2019.

“During the year 2019, the Commission also received a total of 745 reports of suspected corruption. Out of these reports received, a total of 402 were non-corruption related. Therefore, advice was subsequently provided to all those that brought these reports on how best to pursue the matters complained of as they were outside the Commission’s mandate. Of the 745 cases received, 343 reports contained elements of corruption and 202 reports were authorized for investigations, while four were recommended for Corruption Prevention interventions. Some reports did not have sufficient details of the corruption offence to warrant investigations to be conducted. There were 137 such cases, which were subsequently referred to relevant institutions for administrative action. Out of the remaining cases, some were closed with no further action due to insufficient information, while others are still being studied to determine the next course of action. The complainants in these matters were also advised accordingly,” Mwanza stated.

“In addition, the Commission concluded and closed a total of 75 investigation cases. The Commission also recorded 38 arrests. At the close of the year, there were a total of 758 cases under investigations.”

And she added that the ACC further conducted several activities in line with their mandate, which included the implementation of programmes aimed at preventing the occurrence of corruption at various levels of interaction between service seekers and providers last year.

“The Commission continued with the review process of the National Anti-Corruption Policy and Implementation Plan,” stated Mwanza.