Lusaka | Sunday
A SPECIAL tribunal in Zambia has found two cabinet ministers guilty on corruption charges involving the diversion of some $750_000 dollars from parliament coffers, a tribunal report said on Saturday.
Home Affairs Minister Peter Machungwa and Works and Supply Minister Godden Mandandi were immediately put on leave, on the orders of President Frederick Chiluba, government spokesman Vernon Mwaanga told AFP.
“We have already made a finding that the sum of two billion kwachas ($750_000) was diverted by two respondents to some unauthorised use,” the tribunal’s report said.
Finance Minister Katele Kalumba, jointly investigated in the case, was acquitted due of insufficient evidence. The special tribunal chaired by Zambian deputy chief justice David Lewanika recommended that Chiluba immediately sack the two ministers from cabinet and parliament.
“The president has asked the two ministers to go on leave,” Mwaanga said.
The embattled ministers have however obtained a court order barring Chiluba and the speaker of parliament from effecting the tribunal’s verdict.
Zambian chief justice Matthew Ngulube established the tribunal at the request of opposition members who alleged that two billion kwacha of parliamentary funds were used for the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) annual congress in April.
The chief justice is by law required to institute a tribunal to probe allegations against any minister suspected to have breached ministerial and parliamentary codes of conduct.
In 1996, the then legal affairs minister Lemmy Mushota was sacked from government after a similar special tribunal found him guilty of attempting to withdraw state funds without permission. – AFP