4 Zambia Sugar Managers Arrested For Corruption

The Anti-Corruption Commission has moved into Zambia Sugar Plc head office in Mazabuka to investigate allegations that some supervisors and engineers solicited bribes in order to award tenders to contractors that rehabilitate the factory during off-crop season.
And the commission has arrested four Zambia Sugar employees for alleged tender-related corrupt practices involving K40,000.
Zambia Sugar Plc and police sources said officers from the ACC moved into the company’s Mazabuka offices to “sift through documentation” after some officers were caught obtaining a solicited K10,000 bribe from a local contractor who had undertaken rehabilitation works valued at over K135,000, on the company factory.
The off-crop season is the period between early November to around April when the sugar factory stops processing cane into sugar and the facility undergoes rehabilitation.
The sources said there had been long-term corruption in the award of tenders for the rehabilitation of the factory and some affected contractors reported some Zambia Sugar employees to their superiors after they were asked to pay bribes to be contracted for the works.
They said the money in question was paid to one of the suspect at a local Roman Catholic Church in Mazabuka over last Easter weekend and that the police who had set a trap apprehended the man as soon as he tried to drive away from the church grounds after receiving the K10,000.
And Zambia Sugar head of corporate affairs Doreen Kabunda and ACC public relations manager Timothy Moono separately confirmed the arrest of the four employees.
According to Moono, Alexander Han’gombe, 51 a maintenance foreman of house number 316 Apollo compound Mazabuka, Hikanyemu Hanguwa, 45 a service superintendent of house number 18 Mwanachingwala Road Nakambala Estate, Mazabuka, Felix Mubita, 42, a liaison officer of house number 1287 West Villa Mazabuka, and Harold Shilukukwa, 43, a maintenance foreman of house number 608 Kaonga compound yard Mazabuka, all employees of Zambia Sugar Company Plc had been jointly charged with one count of corrupt practices by private bodies contrary to the Anti-Corruption Act.
The allegation is that on dates unknown but between January 1 and April 26 in Mazabuka, Han’gombe, Hanguwa, Mubita and Shilukukwa, corruptly solicited for K40,000 and actually received K10,000 cash gratification from Malaria Crispin Kabwenda, a director at Lazpine Engineering Company, as an inducement or reward for themselves, for having facilitated the award of contract for maintaining rollers at Zambia Sugar Company to Lazpine Engineering.
The four have since been released on bond and will appear in court soon.
Meanwhile, Kabunda said the four supervisors from the factory and engineering departments had been suspended in view of the incident.