ECONOMIC COURT REJECTS CHIYESO LUNGU’S APPLICATION TO CROSS EXAMINE DEC
THE Economic and Financial Crimes Court (EFCC) has dismissed Chiyeso Lungu’s application seeking an order to cross examine Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) investigations officer, Emmanuel Khondwe, in a matter she is opposing the non-conviction-based forfeiture of her properties to the State.
Ms Lungu, daughter of former President Edgar Lungu, made the application on grounds that some of the material facts in the notice of motion by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) were untrue.
She stated that the applicant deposed that house no. Lot 9390/M in State Lodge cost K9.6 million when she bought the said property at K3 million, which was money from her parents.
She also submitted that the DPP had deposed that three flats had been built on property no. LSK/LN-79093, at a cost of K2.6 million when she had not built any such flats on the property in question.
Therefore, the application to have the deponent of the affidavit in support of motion, Mr Khondwe, to be cross examined.
But in a ruling delivered on Tuesday, Judges Ann Malata-Ononuju, Mr Ian Mabbolobolo and Mr Vincent Siloka, dismissed Ms Chiyeso’s application.
The court did not agree with Ms Lungu’s argument that it can only come to an accurate fact-finding mission if the deponent is cross examined.
Further held the view that the matter does not call for cross examining the deponent as sought to be argued by the interested party (Ms Chiyeso).
Justice Mabbolobolo said the interested party had not adduced convincing reasons or established that the affidavit evidence that was already before court was insufficient for purposes of determination of the matter. “It would appear to us that, as argued by the applicant, the application by the interested party is a disguised attempt by the interested party at a second bite of the cherry to try and traverse what ordinarily should have been dealt with in the affidavit in opposition,”
“Applying the facts of this case in totality to the principles of law laid down by the authorities discussed above, we are not satisfied that the interested party has laid a good foundation for us to grant her application for leave to cross examine the deponent,” said the court.
In this matter, the DPP alleged that according to investigations by DEC, the interested party owned two farms with a high-cost house, four chicken runs and three flats in Lusaka’s State Lodge area, property worth K9, 375, 438.62, and acquired between 2013 and 2021,
The DPP also stated that a probe at Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) showed that the former President’s daughter never declared any tax income and her company, Crest Lodge, on property no. LUS /38478, off Twin Palm Road in Ibex Hill in Lusaka, declared VAT amounting to K14, 306, 103.87 and also declared rental income amounting to K375, 000.
He said the value of the seized property was way beyond her known income.