Just pay back, Nevers tells ex-PF ministers

The Attorney General has nowhere to appeal the Constitutional Court order for former PF ministers to pay back illegal salaries, says MMD leader Nevers Mumba.

And Mumba says Minister of Finance Felix Mutati has been paid for his mercenary work.

On Wednesday, newly appointed home affairs minister Stephen Kampyongo told Hot FM Radio that former ministers had written to the Attorney General asking him to revisit the ConCourt ruling which ordered them to pay back salaries and other emoluments they had drawn when they illegally stayed in office after the dissolution of Parliament.

Former information minister Chishimba Kambwili also told Hot FM that it was unacceptable for people to suggest that the former ministers’ stay in office was illegal when they “were rendering a service to the Zambian people”.

But in an interview yesterday, Mumba observed that the PF had the capacity to defy the ConCourt ruling which they don’t like.

“There’s no way that the Constitutional Court can revisit that decision, they should just pay. Those ministers should not have even been appointed. They are being petitioned and based on that ruling, they are still going to lose their positions,” Mumba said.

“That decision cannot be reversed, they are not the owners of the justice system, the justice system belongs to God and to the Zambian people so they can’t say that the Attorney General should revisit that decision, how can he revisit it? He is not the court and the ruling has been made and we are confident that the court decision will be enforced.”

He further suggested that President Lungu might also pay for staying in office when the Speaker should have acted as President.

“It is the same thing with President Lungu, he has many problems, he has gone beyond the line of being considered a responsible person because he should have stepped aside and allowed the Speaker to act, the ruling has not yet been made and they rushed to get him inaugurated in an irregular manner but I think that he is going to pay in the same manner that the ministers are going to pay by being penalized and paying back the money. The time that he was president when he should not have been, we have to deal with that by law and see how the law is going to treat him,” Mumba said.

He, however, noted that the PF had ignored many court decisions in the past.

“I want you to know that this PF party is a great danger to the rule of law and order and is also a danger to democracy. They don’t respect the law and we have just started a battle to free Zambians in terms of their liberties and freedoms,” Mumba said.

And Mumba said Mutati was being rewarded for his mercenary work.

“I usually don’t comment on what Mutati does because what he does is of no consequence to the MMD at the moment, he is not considered as one of us, he is an expelled member. But having said that, I think that the entire MMD team is now justified and I think that the Supreme Court’s decision is also justified that Mr Lungu had to find a weak link in the MMD to sponsor so that he could destabilise MMD and Mr Mutati is now being paid for it; obviously now he is being rewarded for the destruction that he and Mr Rupiah Banda did to MMD,” said Mumba.

“He was a mercenary sent by Mr Lungu to destroy MMD and now he is being paid for his mercenary work by the mercenary sponsor. His appointment does not affect MMD is any way. MMD has never been under Mutati. There’s no legal statement that gives him authority to be called MMD president. He was only being called president by the public media; ZNBC, Times of Zambia, Daily Mail plus the PF controlled Daily Nation. He has no legal standing and there’s a Supreme Court ruling against him but because the gentlemen are in power, they thought they could change the law by insisting that he is president. But he has never been president  of the Courtesy of The Post Newspaper  MMD.”

Courtesy of The Post Newspaper