By George Zulu
Police in Chinsali District in Muchinga Province have charged Socialist Party 2021 presidential candidate Fred M’membe with two counts of theft of proceeds of the sale of Post Newspapers Limited.
Confirming the development to The Watch Newspaper, Dr. M’membe says he was summoned last week by police in Chinsali.
He has however, explained that the charges leveled against him of fraud and theft are malicious and meant to tarnish his political image.
The full statement below…
Statement on the allegations of fraud and theft made against me by Mr Lewis Mosho
It is very sad that wild and malicious allegations have once again been made against me.
I was last week summoned by the Police in Chinsali, Muchinga, made to believe that my house which was taken, with no evidence of wrong doing by myself, in my village in Chinsali over a year ago was going to be returned.
However, I was today charged with two counts of theft of proceeds of sale of Post Newspapers Limited property located in Lusaka, sold by the company prior to it going into liquidation.
Those that have brought these charges against me, know very well that I was never involved in the sale of Post Newspapers Limited property and never used proceeds from the same for my personal benefit. These transactions were conducted through banks, thus, records relating to this sale and use of the proceeds are easily available.
These allegations are being brought by people who are stuck in their criminal activities and have thus opted to concoct lies. They have found nothing against me since the liquidation of Post Newspapers Limited and the illegal occupation of my house in Chinsali over a year ago. It is well known that they will not be able to prove these lies. But all this is being done, as the masses of this country are looking for alternative leadership and our party is growing very fast.
With our rising political fortunes, my being smeared with the filth of fraud and theft doesn’t come as a surprise. It was expected. Post Newspapers Limited wasn’t a kantemba, a briefcase company, it was a big company with a professional accounting staff.
It wasn’t possible for any individual person to take that amount of money, let alone for a property sale, without being noticed or traced.
Although I owned almost all the shares in the company, I never treated the assets and liabilities of the company as mine. The finances and assets of Post Newspapers Limited were handled and managed by its accounting staff. And I did not handle the sale of the said property. It was handled by the accounting staff and other responsible managers – and all are still alive.
The payment was made through the bank and so were the disbursements – which I am told were mainly to the Zambia Revenue Authority. All these transactions can be traced from the bank records.
If the police were professional in their dealing with Mr Mosho’s complaint, they would have gone to the bank to check how the money moved from the buyer to Post Newspapers Limited’s bank accounts. And it could also reveal how it was disbursed from that account. But because of clear political pressure that has surrounded the whole liquidation of Post Newspapers Limited police professionalism, objectivity and fairness have been lost.
They know very well that this case is going nowhere but that does not bother them because their intention is not punish wrongdoing but to politically, morally and otherwise humiliate me.
Will they succeed? No. The Zambian people know very well what is going on and cannot be swayed by such malice, lies and calumny.
They are the thieves, not me.
I challenge Mr Mosho to render an audited account of the assets of Post Newspapers Limited he has collected and sold.
However, this will not deter us from fighting the injustice and inequity that is growing in our country. We will continue to mobilise Zambians to fight corruption, greed and injustice.
Issued by Dr Fred M’membe
Mwika Royal Village,
Shiwangandu