Africa-Press – Zambia. Four Anti Corruption Commission officers last month travelled to South Africa in an attempt to seize Bowman’s Office Park in Sandton after they received fake information that the building belonged to Bowman Lusambo, it has emerged.
Acting on a tip-off, the officers embarked on the trip with the hope that they will seize it as part of investigations into Mr Lusambo’s properties suspected to be proceeds of crime.
One of the officers who were in the “Search and Seize” operation in South Africa has exclusively revealed in an interview that the episode has left an embarrassing taste in the officers at ACC.
The officers later found out that Mr Lusambo had no links to the building which hosts the Head Office for a law firm, Bowman Gilfillan. Bowman’s Office Park is an iconic and imposing modern building sitting in the heart of Sandton at the corner of Alice Lane and 5th Street, an upmarket part of Gauteng Province in Johannesburg.
Patrice Motsepe who is now CAF President is a former Partner and Attorney at Bowman Gilfillan which he joined in 1988. When Bowman Gilfillan reorganized in the new post-apartheid environment, Mr Motsepe left to apply his business acumen to the mining trade.
Bowmans last year opened a new office in Zambia, registered as B&M Legal Practitioners with two partners: managing partner, Mabvuto Sakala and Bwalya Chilufya-Musonda.
The ACC officer whose identity has been held to protect him from victimization said the SA trip is one of the many futile undertakings that officers at the Commission have made in an at attempt to find something incriminating on Mr Lusambo.
“We have been under pressure to find something on Bowman. We went to South Africa after an informant told us that he owns that big building in Sandron called Bowmans, we went there and conducted an operation but we drew a blank. We were four of us and the entire trip was funded by the Commission,” the source said.
He also revealed that the Commission has so far undertaken 15 trips to Ndola hoping to find something there during the period he served as Copperbelt Minister.
“It has been tasking on our part as investigators. We combed all the files at Ndola when he found no thing incriminating when he worked as Minister there but there was still pressure to get him, this is when our bosses came up with the sensational story of 49 houses, they actually planted that story in the Diggers to create negative perception of Bowman Lusambo, there are no 49 houses anywhere, ask yourselves why we have not seized them?”
He added, “we have drawn blanks everywhere we have been and this is why the cases we have taken to court aren’t moving but the DPP has told us there is no gravity for these cases. So we had to go and get the house he built when he was private citizen just to create a perception that there is something stinky,” he said.
The source also narrated a recent incident in which a female friend of Mrs. Lusambo was interrogated by ACC officers after she visited her at her flat house in Chalala.
“We were trailing the Madam to Hon. Lusambo somewhere in Chalala and we noticed she entered a yard which had a number of flats inside, after Mrs. Lusambo left, we went in and interrogated the lady she had gone to visit on the ownership of the flats and again we drew a blank, we were under pressure to get something, just anything on Mr. Lusambo,” he said.
On the charges before court involving acquisition of three properties in Silverest area in Chongwe, the source said there is no evidence that the properties actually belong to Mr. Lusambo of the wife, Nancy.
“In trying to find something tangible, we put pressure on the Chinese owners of Silverest to give us something on Bowman after we received information that he could be owning some properties there and we only found that he only made a deposit on three properties which he hasn’t even finished paying off.
“There is nothing at Silverest that shows that the three houses belong to the Lusambo’s and we are very scared as officers that if at all we end up in court, there is a risk that we shall be very embarrassed,” he said.
He added, “the unprofessional manner in which we are being forced to carry out these investigations is risking for our careers. There is a greater chance that we could all lose our jobs when there is a change of government,” he said.
“ I have chosen to come out and share with the nation the pressure we have since President Hichilema moved the day to day operations of the Commission to State House, he is now passing illegal instructions to us thereby complicating our work.” Bowman Building
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