PF disciplinary committee chairperson Tutwa Ngulube has charged that Mary Chirwa will bring a lot of problems to the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC).

But Chirwa says such silly allegations are only targeted at distracting her from the important job of asset recovery.

Commenting on Chirwa’s appointment in an interview, Monday, Ngulube said the former Financial Intelligence Centre’s boss was compromised.

“First of all, I think it is a sign that the UPND government do not care about people’s integrity as long as they appoint them to government offices. I think there was an issue of credibility and integrity on her part, how she conducted herself at FIC and also how everything just showed that there were some cases of interpretation of money. There were allegations of unprofessional disclosure of confidential information. All those issues were in the public domain and so if Bally doesn’t care about the integrity of the person he is appointing, then I think he should stop calling us to fight corruption. Because you see, it borders on a lot of things, if you are appointing compromised people to head government institutions, people who have not cleared their names, then it means we are in for a rude shock. We are actually headed for a disaster,” he said.

He said there was need to appoint someone who had a clear record.

“In fact, she must actually [be] dropped. If she was in a position that requires ratification at Parliament, I doubt if the ratification can go through because that woman has a lot of baggage, she is carrying with her at DEC a lot of problems. We hope and trust that somebody who is cleaner, somebody who is neutral or somebody who has no track record of allegations [can be appointed]. We have a lot of innocent people who actually take up, remember in the PF government, some man was appointed to head the FIC, when a background check was done, it was found that he had issues, he was dropped,” Ngulube said.

“Bally should not be scared to drop people when information resurfaces after their appointment. It is good for his government only to have credible people because he has told us that he wants to run a righteous government, now how can you run a righteous government full of people who are dented? It becomes a problem.”

Ngulube said there was need for proper background checks for individuals being appointed to public office.

“Look at the people he has appointed as commissioners of some of these boards and Commissions. Some people were even appearing in court, others had serious allegations of bribery and corruption, misappropriation of government funds, chased from government for misconduct, you hear them being brought back by the UPND government. The question is are we preaching one thing and then doing the direct opposite? So maybe my plea is that Bally must do a background check on some of these people he is appointing, they are going to embarrass him. One day he may appoint someone who will be found guilty by the courts if law or you appoint someone then they steal,” said Ngulube.

But Chirwa said such silly allegations were only a distraction.

“I haven’t seen any of those allegations and I think there are proper channels that people can verify the authenticity of such matters. I don’t think at this time and point I need to stand to start defending myself over silly allegations from whoever comes up. Anyone, we have 17 million Zambians, [not all] will like you or your professionalism, so people will rise up and say whatever they feel like saying. There are channels where if they feel there is something they can go and report and have things verified. So taking me away from the precious time that I need to do my work to ensure that proper things are done in this country to recover proceeds of crime, I think it is doing injustice to the Zambian people. So people who want to divert attention will not manage me, that’s what I can say,” said Chirwa in an interview.