Zambia’s former finance minister Katele Kalumba and three ex-senior treasury officials have been arrested and charged with abuse of office and corruption involving $20-million.
Kalumba and the three former ministry of finance officials have been included in the ongoing corruption case where ex-aides of former president Frederick Chiluba have been put on trial on corruption charges, prosecutor Mutembo Nchito said.
”They appeared in court today (Friday) but could not take plea due to legal technicalities raised by their lawyers,” Nchito said.
The $20-million relate to payments by the finance ministry to the intelligence agency for security contracts, but it is suspected that some of the work was never completed and that there was no tender for the contracts. The state has re-arrested Bede Mpande, a former senior economist, who is currently jointly charged with the former president for allegedly stealing more than $40-million.
The other two officials are former senior treasury officials James Mtonga and Boniface Nonde. The two have been arrested before on similar charges but were released due to lack of evidence against them. The latest arrests come a day after Nchito informed the magistrate’s court in Lusaka on Thursday that the state wanted to re-organise the indictments and arrest more people in order to ”streamline the cases”.
Kalumba and the three others now join the indictment in which the state has charged the former permanent secretary in the finance ministry, Stella Chibanda, former auditor-general Fred Siame and former treasury secretary Ben Mweene, who are on trial for various crimes involving theft of government funds. – Sapa-AFP