Lungu summoned army commander for refusing to surrender army land to PF – police officer
THE Lusaka High Court yesterday heard that former High Court judge, Wilfred Muma told on former Army Commander Lt General Paul Mihova to former president Edgar Lungu for having refused to surrender title to Chikoleka forest belonging to the Zambia Army.
Detective chief inspector Boston Nzhibwe said Lt General Mihova was summoned by Lungu after Muma grassed on him and he was compelled surrender title of the land belonging to the Army which was later assigned to the Patriotic Front.
In this matter Muma is facing two counts of wilful failure to comply with the law and applicable procedure relating to the allocation and disposal of public property, and abuse of authority of office.
The former adjudicator is alleged to have grabbed land from the Zambia Army which is a portion of Chikoleka forest, on Chitukuko road in Woodlands area and issued it to the Patriotic Front in 2018 when he served as Commissioner of Lands.
During cross examination by Muma’s lawyers James Mataliro and Honest Chuzu before judges Pixie Yangailo, Ann Ononjuju and Mwanajiti Mabbolobbolo, the witness said there were ripple effects to Muma’s actions to request for title which led to the commander being summoned to State House by Lungu.
Nzhibwe said the meeting held to surrender tittle was informal, because there was nothing deduced in writing, as it was a verbal interaction.
“General Mihova handed over the land because of the letter from Mr Muma requesting him to do so and the discussion with the President,” he said.
“He was not going to hand over the land without the letter because he wanted something on record.”
Asked if the minutes of the meeting indicated that general Mihova was going to hand over the title without the letter, Nzhibwe responded in the negative.
He said Muma committed an offense for abusing his authority and another when he went and asked for the title from the Army commander.
“Before government property is transferred, a committee of survey is to be constituted and the secretary to the treasury should be consulted so that he can either allow or make amendments to the application. In this context Mr Muma was supposed to follow the procedure because he initiated the request for the certificate of title,” Nzhibwe said.
“Before government lease is expired and certificate of title is cancelled, a surrender deed must be filled in and signed by both the commissioner of lands and the minister of finance to give consent to either the disposal or transfer of government property to another entity but this was not done.”
The arresting officer said Muma attended to the expiry of lease and cancellation of title from ministry of Finance to PF by giving instructions to Mr Chazya Silwimba to urgently deal with the matter.
He said the consideration fee of the land was K3, 800.43.
“The commissioner of land Lynn Hibanje said, the land did not qualify to be called a medium residential cost land because it was government land. The valuation done came up with K4 380.99 as the total amount, she said the property was undervalued,”Nzhibwe said.
He indicated that he arrested Muma because he initiated the process of the surrender of title by Zambia army and issued instructions to Chazya Silwimba to urgently deal with the matter and the results of the instruction were proved by the final expiration of the lease and cancellation of tittle and the land was given to PF registered Trustees.
“I did not arrest Chazya because after realizing that the surrender of title was done by another person other than the minister of finance, he went back to the commissioner of land to table the anomaly but he was told to go ahead and process it because the matter was dealt with at higher level,”Nzhibwe said.
He indicated that Muma visited the army commander and asked him to surrender the certificate to his office and he later breached the law, because of the instructions he gave as a supervisor.
“His actions were not in the best interest of the government of Zambia that owned the land,” said Nzhibwe.
At this point State advocate Angelica Mwanza indicated that Nzhibwe’s testimony marked the conclusion of the prosecutions case.
The Court reserved ruling on case to answer for February 12…https://kalemba.news/…/lungu-summoned-army-commander…/
By Mwaka Ndawa
Kalemba