Former foreign affairs minister Joe Malanji bought seven houses in Silverest Gardens and Chongwe, a day after returning from Turkey in 2020, the Economic and Financial Crimes Court has heard.
The seven houses cost a whopping $50,000 and Malanji paid cash, according the testimony of Kwaleyela Mukelabai, a Senior Assistant commissioner under the anti-money laundering unit at the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC).
Testifying before principal resident magistrate Irene Wishimanga, Mukelabai said he got information from the National Assembly regarding Malanji’s earnings from the period he became a minister in 2016 and 2021 among them : salaries, allowances, and gratuities which were cumulative of K5.1 million.
“When the documents were provided to me analysis of those documents showed that he received allowances K749, 000, salaries K1, 400, 000 and gratuities K1.4 million and for 2019 to 2021 gratuity was K531, 000 coming to K2 million for the gratuity,” Mukelabai said.
“The total income was over K5.1 million that’s what he legally earned from 2016 to 2021.”
Mukelebai said he visited Silverest gardens in the company of Lubinda Chirwa from the ACC to establish whether the intel that Malanji had seven houses in Silverest gardens, was correct.
“After checking the system with Francis Chipeta, we were able to establish that indeed there were houses owned by Mr Malanji. Documents revealed that a $50,000 cash was paid to Silverest gardens by Mr Malanji on December 31, 2020,” Mukelabai said.
“I was interested on the date because, it was connected to the deposits made by Malanji at Stanbic upon his return from Turkey. I concentrated on three houses: no.033, no.269 and house no. 270. The system showed the statement of account for each house which showed the date payments were done towards the purchase.”
He said According to Francis Chipeta payments were being made in staggered arrangements. The $50,000 was broken down in $18,000, $16,000 and $14,000. And the receipts were issued in Malanji’s name.
“After the holistic investigation I decided to call Mr Malanji for an interview for purpose of clarification. The Commission in the initial stages as I said, there were two reports when the first report was made around March he was invited to explain about the purchase of the first helicopter,”Mukelabai said.
“Mr Malanji said the source for the acquisition of the helicopter had come from the contracts he had in Congo and that he had a contract with China Civil engineering construction corporation in Lubumbashi DRC.
He said Malanji provided documents: a sub contract, some withdraw slips showing that Mass investment Limited had paid Gibson Power Systems: He also provided some receipts which were showing that he received cash from the DRC, documents showing that there were interim payments certificates, a letter written by himself to Stanbic Bank which was showing that it was from Cosmopolitan Branch.
Mukelabai Malanji showed him some documents from Row Bank, showing Mass investment had made a transaction to pay Gibson Power systems.
He said he allowed Malanji to leave and engaged the Financial Intelligence Centre
and requested it to verify the authenticity of the documents by verify with the FIC in the neighboring DRC.
“The FIC in Congo wrote to our FIC in Zambia explaining that those purported withdraw slips were not authentic. The account number showing on the documents was not the correct number at Row Bank in DRC,” Mukelabai said.
“Since I was informed that the documents were not authentic I decided to head to DRC for my investigations in 2021. I went informally (on a secret mission) to conduct investigations before I could formally write to authorities to help with information.”
He said he decided to verify whether; China Civil. Engineering Construction Company exists, addresses which were provided on the two contracts between China Civil Engineering Corporation and Gibson Power System, Transactions between Mass investment and Gibson power Systems and whether the addresses were correct.
“The addresses given for China Civil Engineering and Gibson Power Systems was 1902 Nyeta road and Mass investment was plot no.2 Mayenge avenue. We went to the consulate with my colleague and with the help of the staff, I proceeded to go and check on those addresses. I discovered that Nyeta street had plot numbers going up to 47 so plot no. 1902 did not exist in that street,” Mukelabai said.
“From there, I proceeded to avenue Mayenye at plot no. 2. When I reached there, a woman came out of the gate and I requested to speak to the CEO of Mass investment. The woman mentioned that she was a catholic nun and that is where the Catholic nuns were residing. To prove this, I asked her to call other nuns. They confirmed that there was never Mass investment. The older ones said they had Lived there since they were young.”
He said he returned to Zambia and drafted a mutual legal assistance to the DRC government, and he was allowed to go and officially do investigate in the DRC.
“While in DRC my case was given to the prosecutor general who was equivalent to the DPP of this country who upon visiting him told us that the case had been located to an investigating magistrate Charles Lwanga Kabozya.”Mukelabai said.
He said Kabozya had informed him that, according to the investigation he carried out, he established that China Civil Engineering never dealt with Gibson Power Systems.
According to Kabozya, Row bank responded to his inquiry and stated that the seven withdraw slips, bank statements for payment from Mass Investment, were not authentic.
“Mr Charles Kabozya said Row bank provided statements for Mass investments and when I looked at the statements, I was able to see that the Bank statements which Mr Malanji provided to us was from 2017 yet the account for Mass Investment was opened in 2020,” Mukelabai said.
“China Civil Engineering said the contract it was working on at the time, was too small to subcontract Gibson Power Systems. I came back after establishing that the documents Mr Malanji had given us were all not authentic.”
He added that he also established that Malanji had written to Stanbic on October 15, 2020 asking Stanbic Bank to inform the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) that, at some point in future he would be depositing US$100, 000 in cash which would come from the contract which Gibson Power Systems had from Congo.
“To this letter he (Malanji) had attached the contract between China Civil Engineering Company and Gibson Power Systems. Francis Chilufya confirmed that indeed the Bank had received the letter from Malanji and it was received from the Cosmopolitan branch,”said Mukelabai.
Source: lusakatimes
