FIC Must Be Made To Account For The Missing US$2.5 Million Dollars - Chanda

New Congress Party president Pastor Peter Chanda says the financial intelligence center FIC must be made to account for the missing US$2.5 million dollars.

Addressing the media in Lusaka, Pastor Chanda said the FIC dubiously paid a named foreign company US$ 2.5 million dollars to install the security surveillance system, the work which was not done. 

He said the company contracted by the FIC has since vanished with the US$ 2.5 million dollars tax payers money.

Pastor Chanda said Several calls have been made but the FIC director Mary Chirwa has remained mute over the allegations. 

” We fail to understand why the FIC which is not an investigative wing had to embark on such a journey of installing surveillance security systems and at the same time losing US$ 2.5 million dollars, hard earned taxpayers money. Development is retarded when corruption is at the centre ” Pastor Chanda said. 

Pastor said the FIC director Mary Chirwa and her team must be suspended so that thorough investigations are conducted at the institution. 

” It is this vain we call on President Hakainde Hichilema to set up a tribunal that will suspend the director of financial intelligence center Mary chirwa and her team so that thorough investigation can be done in the US$ 2.5 million dollars which was paid to foreign company, a company that was supposed to setup security surveillance systems,” Pastor Chanda said. 

According to the Daily Nation Newspaper, the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) has failed to deny reports that it paid US$10 million for a surveillance system worth US$ 2 million and has been paying US$2.5 million a year for maintenance, resulting in a cumulative payment of US$18 million to date.

According to information provided to the Daily Nation, the agency paid the US$10 million in 2017 for a system that has not been fully installed because spy towers, probes, and the network system have never been installed.

The FIC apparently abandoned a powerful system which was bought in 2012/2013 called the “IBM i2 Intelligence System” which is the same system that the Pentagon and the CIA used to track down terrorist financing, in preference for the new Israeli system whose suppliers have now vanished.

The true price of the intelligence management system is US$ 2 million and not US$10 million. The difference of US$ 8 million reportedly went into kickbacks. The new information follows a story that the Daily Nation published last week that a vendor paid US$2.5 million for a surveillance system had disappeared.

This article originally appeared on Lusaka Times