Technically, Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general Martha Chizuma is now a free person. This is after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Masauko Chamkakala dropped all criminal defamation charges against her early this week. Never mind who forced the State to drop the charges. We all know.

Since Chizuma’s interdiction on January 31 2023 by the Secretary to the President and Cabinet (SPC) Colleen Zamba was also based on the criminal defamation charges which are no longer there, the interdiction was also lifted on February 14 2023. My take is that despite all these developments, Chizuma is farfrom being off the hook.

Her betrayers and back-stabbers are still routing for her. Those baying for her blood are still there and in their abundance. They must have started regrouping and recasting but the script remains the same. Their prized goal is to deposition her. The main players may change but the reasons they want her vanquished sooner than later are intact. The most predictable thing is that they will now go underground. We will never know what else they tried before they succeeded in entrapping her with the December 6 2022 leaked audio which is the source of the dropped charges. What is known, though, is that they are evil to boot.

They will stop at nothing in their ludicrous and debauched scheme to undo Chizuma. Long short, the vultures are dyed-in-the-wool in their determination to triumph where they have failed before. The tragedy though is that we don’t know how. And we don’t know where they will shoot from.

My second hypothesis is that a majority of these blood sucking-vampires are profoundly hooked-up with those who pull the wires in the corridors of power. That is why they found it easy to manipulate State machinery in their ill-fated leaked audio cases. Chizuma’s first traitors—working behind the façade of well-oiled individuals—are the ones who recorded the audio.

And as the State machinery was hounding Chizuma with arrests and all the trumped-up charges, the traitors were sitting cross-legged, musing over and monitoring the proceedings from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices, enjoying a cup of cappuccino.

It boggles belief that a government which professes commitment to fight corruption finds more enjoyment in incarcerating a leading champion of the same war. Such machinery can only be doing so in the egotistical interest of a few individuals closely connected to it.

My third hypothesis is that it is no-brainer that the corruption cases which ACB is pursuing, specifically those linked to businessperson Zunneth Sattar, have not spared a precinct be it in the public or private sector. Such that by now we also know who is who in the Sattar list of individuals that are said to have interacted with the businessperson and benefitted from him directly or indirectly. Their diverse purview in terms of areas expertise entail that we all keep our eyes open and be ready for anything.

We know for a fact that the Executive arm of government has indirect influence over the justice delivery system by controlling the purse strings. For example, they fund the courts. Right now save for the Msukwa corruption case which is in the Supreme Court, all other Sattar-linked cases have been taken to the Financial and Economic Crimes Court (Fecc).

This is a new court set up to expedite prosecution of criminal cases with a bearing on finances. Three High Court judges to man the Fecc were appointed in September 2022. People’s expectation was that the judges would hit the ground running.

Sadly, six months down the line, the court is still not functional and we are being told the delay is partly because it is yet to be given other resources such as support staff. Why is the Executive not expeditiously providing the necessary resources to make the court functional if it is really committed to fight corruption? Is this not one of the ways government wants to frustrate prosecution of the cases?

The Msukwa appeal case—about the admissibility of evidence from the National Crimes Agency of the United Kingdom—moved to the apex court in July 2022. This is also the case on which all other Sattar-linked cases hinge. But the case is not on the cause list for hearing in the first-quarter. Which means it may only be considered for hearing after 10 months at the earliest. Then we blame ACB for not quickly concluding cases. This is the Tonse administration’s way of fighting corruption. Long on talking, very short on walking the talk. Chizuma is not off the hook.

The post Malita is far from being off the hook first appeared on The Nation Online.

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