A HIGH-ranking former commander of the defeated PF, Francis Muchemwa who was second in command of the vicious Intercity Bus Terminus battalion says the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has kicked him out of his properties and rendered him homeless.
At the height of the PF rule, Muchemwa led his troops to many bloody victories against opposition and dissidents with his only defeat in 2019 coming from the judo-strengthened hands of President Hakainde Hichilema’s aide de camp Shapa Wakunguma who was Sesheke District police officer commanding at the time.
Muchemwa and his troops were beaten to pulp and rendered stretcher cases after they imported violence in the Sesheke by-election that was eventually won by UPND’s Romeo Kangombe.
Despite the painful beating, Muchemwa and his soldiers got the last laugh as then President Edgar Lungu kicked Wakunguma and four other cops out of the Zambia Police Service as punishment for clobbering ruling party thugs.
However, trouble has been Muchemwa’s close companion from the time PF left power.
Immediately the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) announced that his boss, Lungu, had tumbled at the polls and was to leave State House, Muchemwa fled into self-imposed exile and stayed as a fugitive in South Africa before he sneaked back in the country several months later.
Last September, the anti-graft body arrested the once feared commander for possession of suspicious property worth over K12 million.
He was charged with five counts of possession of property suspected to be proceeds of crime which included a house in Silverest valued at K2.5 million
and apartments valued at K4.5 million in the same area which were all acquired between the period of 2015 to 2022.
Muchemwa is also being prosecuted for pocketing worth more than K1. 4 million as his gross earnings from June 2015 to August 31, 2021 as a Security Sergeant at Zesco Limited with the state arguing that he never worked for the loadshedding implementing power utility.
On Friday, Muchemwa cried to the Daily Nation Newspaper that the ACC had kicked him and his family on the wet streets of Lusaka after seizing his houses on Thursday evening.
Quoting him as a businessman, the Daily Nation reported that Muchemwa confirmed that that the ACC had seized his house and apartments in Chongwe’s Silverest area and ordered him to vacate them by 18:00 hours on Thursday.
“As I speak, I am homeless with my children and my wife and I am struggling to find where I will sleep and where I will get my next meal,” the 38 year old was quoted as saying.
It is reported that according to an ACC call-out dated January 9, 2023 Muchemwa was requested to report himself to the ACC on Wednesday, January 11, 2023.
However upon arriving at the ACC offices, Muchemwa was surprised to find
there was no interview scheduled but was later informed by law enforcement officers that they had to go with him to his apartments.
When Muchemwa asked if he had been arrested, the officers told him he wasn’t.
When the officers arrived at the apartments, they told him that they were given instructions to seize all his trucks properties because the restriction order had expired, Muchemwa told Daily Nation.
“My cry to the President is
that he [should] embrace young people
like me and encourage us. If we are wrong, control us, we are the future of the nation,” he said.
Muchemwa said this action by the ACC will affect 50 workers who will now struggle without jobs.
“I am just a young man aged 38 fighting my lungs out for a better future with determination to help others,” Muchemwa said.
Kalemba January 15, 2023
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