By NATION REPORTER
TWO Parliamentarians have challenged the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to immediately move and arraign Evans Muhanga, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Tourism for abuse of authority following the nullification of the re-advertised Safari hunting tender by the High Court.
The two Members of Parliament have vowed that they will move a Private Members Bill in Parliament to have the ACC disbanded if the commission was going to fail to discharge its mandate to hold Mr Muhanga accountable.
At a joint press briefing on Thursday, Davison Mung’andu and Munir Zulu discussed an array of governance issues including the failure of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and the fight against corruption.
Mr Zulu, the Lumezi lawmaker said he was going to move a Private Members bill to compel Parliament to scrap the ACC if the Commission was not going to act on Mr Muhanga over the cancellation of Hunting Concession Agreements.
Mr Zulu said that there was no need of spending tax payers’ money on the ACC when it was failing to do its job of fighting corruption being committed by those in government.
He stated that the High Court judgement had clearly exposed Mr Muhanga that he was not corrpt-free and that since the ACC had been investigating the matter, their job had been made easier by the High Court.
Mr Zulu said Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha had been lucid in his legal advice against the cancellation of the tender but that Mr Muhanga had decided to ignore the advice and went on the cancel the Hunting Concession Agreements thereby committing a crime.
“I will personally move a Private Members bill in Parliament in order to scrap off the ACC if it does not act on Mr Muhanga because the High Court has proved that indeed, what Mr Muhanga did was wrong. There is now irrefutable evidence that Mr Muhanga ignored the legal advice of the Attorney General and the ACC should now move and arrest him fair to which, the Commission should be disbanded,” Mr Zulu said.
He said that the ACC had indicated that it had concluded its investigations concerning the cancellation of the tenders by Mr Muhanga but that the Commiission was scared to release the findings because the outcome was an embarrassment.
He called on President Hakainde Hichilema to fire Tourism Minister Rhodine Sikumba and his Permanent Secretary for having breached the law by illegally terminating the hunting concessions.
He said president Hichilema should take a leaf from late Michael Sata who fired then Tourism minister Sylvia Masebo who was involved in a similar situation.
Meanwhile Mr Mung’andu has said that it was good that the judiciary had remained steadfast and delivered a judgement tht had exposed the Ministry of Tourism for breaching the law by cancelling tenders that were legally and dully awarded.
Mr Muhanga said that the only hope they had was the Judiciary because the third arm of government had exhibited integrity who were discharging their duties diligently.
Mr Mung’andu said that people were now suspecting that Mr Muhanga was getting instructions from President Hakainde Hichilema who is on record as having ordered the cancellation of the Safari hunting tender.
