PF central committee member Davies Mwila says the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Court is targeted at convicting former ruling party members.
In an interview, Mwila, however, warned that this court would also affect UPND members in the long run.
“I know they are targeting PF members but it will catch up with them also. It will not be only targeted at PF members, I know they are targeting PF members. I want to tell you that I recall that when Chiluba was in power, they brought the law on car theft, a non bailable offence. They introduced that law and it caught up with them. You remember what had happened? So even with the introduction of that court, it is not only the PF, even themselves, because it will be there even in future. Not only that, anyone that commits a crime who is in power, they will go through the same court,” he said.
“So it is not a big issue, but everyone will be affected. So it is for everyone we are talking about the $50 million fertilizer scandal, look at the price of the roads, they used to laugh at us, look at the price of fertiliser, so all those are corruption issues. So it will catch up with them. No one is an island.”
And Mwila said the UPND would be embarrassed if they attempted to remove former president Edgar Lungu’s immunity.
“If they are thinking of immunity, it is not possible for them to remove the immunity because under the current law, it must be two thirds of the total number of members of parliament. They don’t have those numbers so even if they take it to Parliament, it will just be an embarrassment. So that agenda cannot work. I would advise them to forget about it as of now. That is why they were in a hurry, they had to use honourable Madam Speaker to expel those nine members of parliament,” said Mwila.
“They were looking at the numbers but it has backfired because those seats have not been nullified and the matter is in the ConCourt. So in terms of the numbers, they are not there and also if you look at the Kabwata by election, they knew that they were going to lose. Once they lose, their numbers will reduce. So chances of them lifting immunity will not be there because two thirds cannot be attained. So it is very difficult.”
2 Responses
If that’s the case, then job well done.
Ba Mwila, that is what good governance entails. You dont look at faces when devising laws or systems of oversight. This is good so that the current crop of leaders start to compare themselves against the standards which have been set. What makes naturally good people to become bad leaders is because they corrupt oversight systems or institutions when they are in power and hence what they get as feedback are just praises and false hopes!! I hope you can relate to this analogy…