INTELLIGENT Mobility Solutions (IMS) board chairman Walid El Nahas has applied for leave to commence judicial review proceedings in the Lusaka High Court against the Immigration Director General’s decision to reject his application for renewal of his residence permit.

Walid wants the court to grant him permission to apply for judicial review and that it should operate as a stay of the Immigration’s decision.

According to a notice of motion for judicial review filed in the Lusaka High Court last week, Walid stated that he was a Lebanese and resident of Lusaka’s Makeni area, adding that he applied for the renewal of his residence permit but instead received a notice of rejection to his said application.

He stated that he appealed against the decision to the Director General of the Immigration but the appeal was equally rejected without furnishing him with reasons for doing so.

Walid stated that he then appealed to the Minister of Home Affairs Stephen Kampyongo but the appeal was again rejected.

He added that he then applied for a temporal work permit of about three months to wind up his affairs in Zambia but this too had been refused.

Walid lamented that he would greatly be affected and his assets in the company as a going concern would be ruined if his application for renewal was completely rejected.

He added that he would have no option to wind up his affairs in Zambia more so that he had invested colossal sums in Zambia in a company called Intelligence Mobility Solutions Limited.

Walid now wants the court to direct and order that the leave which would be granted to him should operate as a stay of forcibly remove and/or to deport him from Zambia.

Walid was jointly charged with President Edgar Lungu’s former Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations Amos Chanda and former RTSA chief executive officer Zindaba Soko with corrupt practices but the State in May this year entered a nolle in their favour.