Tembo demands for Mbahwe’s resignation

By Staff Reporter

The Patriots for Economic Progress has demanded for the immediate resignation of Commissioner of the Drug Enforcement Commission Alita Mbahwe for openly attacking the Financial Intelligence Center over the recently published trends report.

Party President Sean Tembo says Mbahwe is no longer a fit and proper person to continue occupying such a coveted position in the context of the criminal justice system of this nation.

Tembo who is saddened with the recent attacks on FIC by the DEC over the recently released trends report said such attacks by one state institution against another was retrogressive to the standing of the nation in the eyes of the international community, and gives a perception that there was disorganized Government unable to coordinate its own state institutions.

Tembo said that the trends report published by the Zambian FIC were similar in detail and content to the ones published by other countries in the region and overseas.

“ The attacks therefore, made by the Director General of DEC against the Financial Intelligence Centre do not only lack merit but are probably laced with malice also,” he said.

Tembo noted that Mbahwe had genuine concerns against the operations of the Financial Intelligence Centre, she should have had the presence of mind to engage FIC in confidence and seek to iron out those concerns.

“The action of convening a press briefing just for the sole purpose of assaulting the integrity and standing of a fellow state institution can only come from a person that is either compromised by those mentioned in the FIC Report, or someone who lacks a sense of judgment requisite of a person holding a position as important as that of Director General of the Drug Enforcement Commission,” he said.

Tembo said that PEP and the Zambian people had lost confidence in the integrity, independence and objectivity of Mbahwe, given the callousness of her actions in this regard.