ACC backtrack on 48 houses suspicious - Musoma
IT’S likely that some Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) officials may have been coerced into concealing the names of the people who own the 48 housing units suspected to be proceeds of crime, Zambia Republican Party (ZRP) president, Wright Musoma, has charged.
Mr Musoma told the Daily Nation in a telephone interview in Lusaka yesterday it was strange that the ACC could fail to trace the owners of the housing units when it had competent investigation officers.
He said the situation raised suspicion that some people in the system may have been paid in order not to disclose the information as there were so many ways of finding out that information.
ACC acting Director General Rosemary Nkonde Nkuzwayo announced on Monday the Commission had closed the case against a named Ministry of Finance official who allegedly owned 48 housing units recently forfeited to the State for lack of evidence linking him to the said property.
She said no one had come forward to declare ownership of the said property after publication of the gazette notice while the person in whose name the property were registered had equally disowned them.
Ms Nkuzwayo said the ACC could not prosecute the matter in the absence of evidence.
But Mr Musoma said the matter at hand was serious and the ACC should do everything it could to trace the owner of the said properties.
He described the commission’s justification for closing the matter as unreasonable and urged them to re-open it so that the person or people behind it could be punished.
“The Commission chief is showing us that some officials were most likely bribed in order to hide the names of the owners of the housing units. So the ACC is saying that those houses built themselves, which is unacceptable. We are urging ACC to reopen the case and institute investigations so that people involved are brought to book,” Mr Musoma said.
He said the nation would not tolerate mediocrity from the Commission because it is entrusted with an important task to burb in the nation.