Witness testifies how former senior MET officers were trapped in corruption case
By Staff Reporter
A WITNESS has testified that a senior official at the Zambia Meteorological Department instructed him to transfer part of the money he was paid by the government for the digitalisation of meteorological data project at MET.
GBMS Engineering Limited chief executive officer Godwin Banda said this in a case where former Zambia Meteorological Department (ZMD) director Jacob Nkomoki, Joseph Kanyanga, Overseas Mwangase and Mukufute Mukelebai are charged with corrupt practices and abuse of authority of office.
It is alleged in the first count that the accused persons have between July 1, 2014 and November 31, 2015 at Lusaka, being public officers namely as directors and senior officer at Zambia Meteorological Department, corruptly solicited for 12, 459 euros cash each.
It also alleged that the money was for gratification from GBMS as an inducement or reward in order for them to sign the completion statements for the works that were awarded to GBMS based on contract number MZID 2011997672.
Count two alleges that Nkomoki, Kanyanga, Mwangase and Mukelebai during the same period, abused the authority of their offices in the manner in which they caused to be signed a Memorandum of understanding ( MoU) between ZMD and GBMS which was solely for their benefit based on information that the data to be captured needed to be secured when in fact no security measures were incorporated in the MoU.
Banda was awarded the contract through the Ministry of Mines, Energy and Water Development to do the digitalization of hydrological and meteorological data to be used in the integrated water resources
management information system.
Banda testified before chief resident magistrate Lameck Mwale that he reported the issue to the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) after noticing that it was an anomaly for him to transfer the money to individual beneficiaries of ZMD members of staff instead of ZMD itself as was agreed in the Memorandum of understanding ( MOU ) between GBMS and MET.
Banda said Mwangase after requesting that GBMS be paid for the work it did in conjunction with ZMD on the project, he gave him a list of names of MET members of staff who he was to pay individually in their bank accounts instead of transferring the money to the ZMD bank account that worked with GBMS under the contract.
He said senior officers at ZMD signed an MOU with his company for them to be paid 60 per cent of the payments of the contract.
Banda said the ACC set up a trap where they wrote a letter to ZANACO to transfer the money from his bank account to those of senior ZMD senior members of staff individual bank accounts.
He said according to the letter which was written to the bank dated November 21, 2015, the bank instructed that the money be transferred from the witness’s account to Nkomoki, Kanyanga, Mwangase and Mukelebai.
Banda said after the letter was written and delivered to the bank, the money was transferred to the beneficiaries’ accounts and he notified both the beneficiaries and ACC.
He said some of the beneficiaries tried to access the funds but they failed.
Banda further testified that his company raised a certificate of completion but ZMD senior staff refused to verify it until the money which was sent to their individual accounts has been accessed.
He said within the same period of November and December 2015, he wrote a letter asking the bank to transfer some money to the other eight beneficiaries but sadly, the ACC did not issue a notice to their various banks to restrict the usage of the money and the money was accessed and used by the eight beneficiaries.
Banda said when he went back to ACC, he was told that they had not restricted the bank account for the eight other beneficiaries as such the beneficiaries had accessed the money and used it.
