Katele Exonerates HH on Privatisation Scandal
Former Finance Minister Dr Katele Kalumba has defended UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema against claims that he enriched himself during the sale of state assets - including the Mosi-O-Tunya Hotel and the Sun International Hotel - in the 1990s.
Dr Kalumba said that at the time of the sale, his ministry, aided by the Zambia Privatisation Agency (ZPA), completed thorough due diligence investigations before agreeing to privatisation and found nothing to implicate Mr Hichilema in corruption.
Speaking to ZNBC on Sunday, Dr Kalumba said the issues surrounding privatisation were thoroughly scrutinised under President Levy Mwanawasa.
“I didn’t expect it to get to this far. I think the issues were well-reviewed under President Mwanawasa. Committee of parliament was set up to review the privatization, the ZPA acquitted itself in their reports and so one, the issues that were raised by the Auditor General were in public domain and some of them were answered while some of them were not answered. But I didn’t expect that it would reach this scenario,” he said.
The ex-minister said he was confident in the ability of parliament and the ZPA to oversee the fair and legitimate sale of state assets.
When asked about Mr Hichilema’s role in the sale, Dr Kalumba said he was only being swept up in the scandal because he is seeking private office.
“Now it’s only Mr Hakainde Hichilema’s name which is coming out but in the past, there were other names coming out. It happened that maybe because he is a man who is seeking public office and people are asking him to account. I have gone through this issue and if you are calm, and answer these things reasonably, people will leave you. But don’t be emotional about it,” he said.
The former minister went on to explain how corruption is an endemic problem within the Zambian state and is not perpetrated individually by ministers but rather is enabled by officials within the civil service.
“There is no school for ministers. Usually, when ministers go into office, they are schooled by the officials they find there, on what to do and so on. And the system of governance must be examined very well on how ministers relate with the officials. And for those that may have the predisposition to acquire things outside the law, usually, they work with the officials in government. A minister cannot do it alone. Corruption is on the streets and we have to look at it holistically as a society”.
He concluded that corruption investigations must examine the public sector as well as the government, since it is the private sector that competes for and carries out government contracts.