By RUTH YAMBAYAMBA
Unless President Hakainde Hichilema’s instructions to Evans Muhanga to cancel the Safari hunting tender were in written, there is a real possibility that the Ministry of Tourism Permanent Secretary would end up in jail after the UPND tenure in office expires, Davison Mung’andu has said.
And Mr Mung’andu has disclosed that both Mr Muhanga and Rodine Sikumba, the Minister of Tourism have stopped answering his phone calls, including text messages for having advised the duo against the cancellation of the Safari hunting tender.
Meanwhile, Mr Mung’andu, the Patriotic Front (PF) Chama South Parliamentarian has accused a traditional leader in the business of Safari hunting of having influenced the cancellation of the Hunting Concession Agreements (HCAs).
Mr Mung’andu said former Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Director General and now the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Gilbert Phiri had warned that if Mr Muhanga’s instructions from President Hakainde Hichilema to cancel the Safari hunting tender were not in written, he was likely to be prosecuted and jailed for carrying out illegal instructions.
Mr Mung’andu said this on Friday when he appeared on Millennium TV on Millennium Tonight Programme to discuss the cancellation of hunting concessions and human/animal conflict
He stated that the cancellation of the Safari hunting tender was political and illegal from the beginning and that it was not surprising that the High Court had nullified the re-advertised tender which had been declared illegal.
“Out of love for my brother Evans Muhanga, I warned that he was going to the first Permanent Secretary in the UPND to go to jail after leaving office for acting on instructions which were not written. My friend, Gilbert Phiri who is often objective and who was the ACC director general at the time that if Mr Muhanga had received instructions from President Hichilema to cancel the tender, which instruction were not written and in breach of the law, then he (Mr Huhanga) was acting in his personal capacity. So Mr Muhanga committed an illegality unless the instructions from President Hichilema were in written,” Mr Mung’andu said.
He said all instructions from the Presidency were supposed to be in written and that if there were no written instructions for Mr Muhanga to cancel the Safari hunting tender, an offence could have been committed.
He said the cancellation of the tender was political on the basis that it was presided over by the PF administration.
And Mr Mung’andu has complained that both Mr Huhanga and Mr Sikumba had excommunicated him and had since stopped answering his phone calls because of the advice he had rendered over the Safari hunting tender cancellation saga.
“The cancellation of the Safari hunting tender has been one of the biggest scandal ever. I have been talking about it and now, Mr Muhanga and Mr Sikumba have stopped answering my phone calls. I sent a text message to Mr Sikumba advising how best we should manage the raging saga but he has ignored it. But we are not going to leave the fight to outfitters and the CRBs (Community Resource Boards) alone. Our colleagues have no respect for the people’s representative and they will not listen,” Mr Mung’andu said.
