United party For national Development (UPND) President, Hakainde Hichilema has described the amount of money being paid back by Ministers who illegally stayed in office following the dissolution of Parliament as initial payment.
Speaking to journalists at his New Kasama residence yesterday, Mr. Hichilema said that that his Government would ensure that a proper assessment is done in order to determine the correct amount each minister was supposed to pay.
Mr. Hichilema termed the amounts being paid back ranging from K50, 000 and K60, 000 as initial payments, saying a proper assessment would determine if more money had to be paid back to Zambians.
“That money belongs to Zambians. They must pay. In fact, they must pay the initial amount now, that’s what I call it. Then, they will be required to pay more once the assessment is done,” he said.
Early this month, the Constitutional Court gave former Cabinet ministers, their deputies and provincial ministers 30 days in which to pay back over K4.2 million which they got from the government in 2016 in a case where Ngosa Simbyakula and 63 others were supposed to pay back a total of K4, 266,664.10 as salaries and allowances for May to July 2016, following the court’s judgment of August 8, 2016 which ordered the ministers to pay back to the State all the allowances and salaries they received when Parliament was dissolved.
The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) and UPND general secretary Stephen Katuka had challenged the continued stay of the ministers after parliament was dissolved ahead of the 2016 general elections and the case was decided in their favour, where the Constitutional Court registrar Dorcus Malama said it was common cause that Simbyakula and others were all paid their respective salaries and allowances in full for the period, May to July, 2016, and that there was no evidence of any other further payment of salaries and allowances made beyond the month of July 2016.
Malama however, said the monies which would be paid back was less the K8,000 repatriation allowances which the State owed the respondents.
“I have first assessed the second to 64th respondents respective earnings for the first eleven days of May, 2016. I have further deducted the 11 days earnings for each of these respondents from the respective totals of the salaries and allowances to be deducted from ministers, as re-computed by the first respondent after the deduction of the repatriation allowances from the initial computation. The resulting totals are, in my view, the amounts that should be refunded to the State by the second to the 64th respondents,” she said.
Malama said on the issue of interest that since the judgment of August 8, 20216 which directed the assessment, did not award interest against the respondents, the argument by LAZ that the monies be paid back with interest could not be sustained.