EPLAIN SECRET RECRUITMENT MOTIVE
…Tell nation the real task of new police recruits, Katele urges HH
By Mast Reporter
PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema must come out in the open and explain to the people of Zambia if he is building a secret police service ahead of the August general elections, former home affairs minister Dr Katele Kalumba has demanded.
“There can’t be secrecy in the recruitment of public officers unless there are very venal, dark motives for doing so. I hope the President can come through and speak to the nation about what this is about. I don’t know these young people’s names now. Let him speak for himself and say this is not acceptable and it should stop. He’s our President and it’s time,” Dr Kalumba said.
Speaking in an interview with The Mast yesterday, Dr Kalumba said the secret recruitment of over 3,000 police officers was strange and illegal.
He said the exercise had created a strange perception and fear among Zambians.
“Now, I’m surprised to even hear that. Because the law with respect to public officers, the recruitment of public officers, which includes the police, is very clear. Now what has changed? Are we creating parallel police structures, or is this something that is supposed to be unaccounted for?” Dr Kalumba, who oversaw police enlistments in his time as minister, wondered.
He said someone in government should explain the inspiration for secretly recruiting police officers a few months before a critical general election.
Dr Kalumba said government should realise that any recruitment of national security officers should benefit the people of Zambia instead of a ruling party.
“And for what reason, then, if it’s not accounted for, particularly in respect to police officers? Because police officers must be accounted for in terms of their duties. That’s why they’re given numbers, names and so on,” he said.
Dr Kalumba warned that there was a hidden danger the country might find itself in if it allowed unaccounted for and dubiously recruited police officers to exist.
“And there’s a danger that we may fall into if we have unaccounted for police officers. And that is, in my view, the possibilities of abductions, murders. All kinds of things can happen. I think the Inspector General [of Police Graphael Musamba] must go back and look at the records of his predecessors,” he said.
Dr Kalumba said the police were there to stop crime and not to get involved in dark activities.
“I worked with a very respectable inspector general, and we started reforms there. We worked very hard to bring down crime. The police are there to bring down crime, but they have to do it in a legally appropriate way,” he said.
“I remember one of my worst attackers at that time used to attack me in the media. It was a letter, so rest in peace. It was Lucy Sichone. Whenever a policeman did something that was not consistent with the law, I took the punches. I wasn’t responsible for his actions, but she was right when procedures were not followed. I answered that reasonably.”
Dr Kalumba said it was not permissible to recruit anyone, a public officer, outside the rules established for the recruitment of public officers in each department of government.
Zambians had resisted any form of secret recruitment of the police and those in power should consider abandoning that route.
He urged Hichilema to prevail over the police command to make amend to assure Zambians that there was no sinister motive for the secret recruitment.
Dr Kalumba said the matter was of great concern, especially since the country was heading towards a critical election.
“We’re going into elections soon in August. It should not be accepted at all. We will have serious problems if that is really allowed to happen in a democratic state, unless we have moved beyond the principles of democracy. I rest here. I don’t want to say too much, but I think the point is made. I pray to my brother, President Hakainde Hichilema, to come clean and speak for himself on this,” said Dr Kalumba.
A cross-section of the Zambian society, including very senior police officers, opposition political parties, former ministers in charge of internal security, critics and supporters of the UPND government have condemned the secretive recruitment of thousands of police officers near a critical by-election.
