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Prison Is Hell – Masumba
MUFUMBWE PF member of parliament Steven Masumba says prison is hell.
Meanwhile, Masumba was yesterday denied bail pending appeal to the Supreme Court after the High Court upheld his 12-month jail term on Monday.
Masumba said in an interview at Chimbokaila Prison, where he spent the night following the High Courts’ decision to uphold his 12-month sentence for obtaining pecuniary advantage, that the conditions were deplorable.
Masumba said Lusaka Central Prison was facing an imminent disease outbreak.
“[These] prisons were designed for black people by colonialists to punish them in every form… even the food and the manner you sleep should be punishment here. It is quite strenuous,” he said.
“There is a situation where you sleep… you put your legs over someone’s head while another is putting theirs on yours. When it comes to turning, you all agree what time to turn.
It is 01:00 hours, you turn to another direction, until morning. Where I am, we are more than 60 in a small thing of about five to six square metres. It is hell. With October like this, you find that you are all sweating. If we were going to be hammered with Ebola in this country, it would be big disaster here.”
Masumba said despite the conditions in prison, he was strong and a soldier who was unlike some political figures that would developed a stroke or hypertension, just upon being investigated.
“I am a very strong person, I have seen people, just over investigations, they have strokes,” Masumba said.
“Politics to me is not something that can come to end. You see in the military, when you are attacked and then you withdraw or you disengage, it does not mean that you have stopped.
Look, I am a young person that even today if I had gone for 10 years, I would still bounce back and I would still be young. Tell my supporters that I have not lost my life.”
Masumba said he would also make it without a political job.
“There have been a number of issues. I cannot perform my parliamentary functions and all those… the benefits and all the remuneration have been frozen. If I was just a nonentity, how was I going to be providing for my family in this situation? The next thing was, you would have seen me on the streets but I have concentrated on my little businesses and that’s what keeps me,” he said.
Masumba said he had communicated to the people of Mufumbwe his decision to withdraw from his position as member of parliament for that area.
“I have not talked to the party but the person that is affected is me. The ultimate thing to do is to give the people of Mufumbwe my feelings. Every time I am being convicted, I am not being convicted with the party. I am being convicted as Masumba,” he said.
Masumba said he understood the people of Mufumbwe loved him but he felt they had been punished for too long.
“From the magistrates’ court, they have been holding on and saying ‘as far as we are concerned, whatever it takes, we want you’,” he said.
Masumba said he could not predict which party the people of Mufumbwe would give their support to.
“When I look at the situation itself, obviously I had the hope that the High Court was going to overturn the magistrate’s decision because up to now, I don’t believe there is any offence I did. And this information is in the public domain. NIPA is on record itself saying, it is the one that gave that document to me. I did not cook that document,” he said.
“How other people came in and used this case to fight me, is something else. That is why I thought maybe people are interested in the position that I am holding. This is just a political war and unfortunately, this political war has involved people like ACC, the judiciary has also been used. It is beyond what I can see with my own eyes. It is a war full of insurgents.”
Masumba also castigated NIPA for what he termed its poor record management system of results.
And Masumba said his crying at court on Monday was mistaken for admission of guilt, stressing that it was his mother’s poor health he was worried about.
“She has been very sick and you would have seen her yesterday at courts. I just had to do a lot of massaging of the heart and told her all was well. As for me, I am able to endure. I understand this political war very well. I will not manage to start mentioning names. They are saying this case was committed in 2002. Why did they wait until I got in the political arena?” Masumba asked.
And Lusaka High Court judge Chalwe Mchenga yesterday refused to grant Masumba bail pending his appeal because his application for bail did not have grounds of appeal.
Judge Mchenga said Masumba’s application for bail was not successful because the notice of intention to appeal he filed did not have the grounds of appeal in determining whether there were exceptional circumstances.
Ruling on the application in his chambers, judge Mchenga said the court would consider the likelihood of the appeal succeeding and the likelihood of Masumba having served a substantial part of the 12 months sentence.
According to a notice of intention to appeal, Masumba indicated his aim to appeal to Supreme Court against his conviction of the Subordinate Court and later the upholding of the same by the High Court on Monday.
However, judge Mchenga said the notice of appeal should have had grounds on which it was filed.
On Monday, judge Mchenga upheld Lusaka Magistrates’ Court conviction and sentencing of Masumba to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour after he was found guilty in November last year to a charge of obtaining pecuniary advantage contrary to the Laws of Zambia.
It was alleged that Masumba knowingly and willingly acquired an accounting diploma from National Institute for Public Administration which was erroneously awarded to him though he had failed in basic accounting and did not sit for the auditing and taxation paper.
Posted by Editor
on October 1, 2014. Filed under LATEST NEWS.
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kim
October 1, 2014 at 6:36 pm
wali ipika ichi pepela iwe mambala ,rot in jail
Katsogoleri
October 1, 2014 at 6:57 pm
Its true that Zambian prisons are inhuman. We aren’t supposed to take people to prison only to punish them: that is a primitive Islamic line of thought. We take them there to rehabilitate them. Chimbokaila should be closed down if we have a thinking govt. Its a shame on our conscience. I wish someone could sneak a camera into that prison for the whole world to see just how primitive Zambian govt is. Slaves used to live like that when being taken to america. we take over and we start behaving like the colonisers!
I was in that prison for months and I slept pa chitakataka for three months in the same cell with Vernon Mwaanga so I know what Iam talking about.
vincent kanyembo
October 1, 2014 at 7:34 pm
very sady .bt also a lesson to members of public for bad morals
Masumba Itole
October 1, 2014 at 8:20 pm
This fo.ol wants to be appealing so that he can spend the whole of his sentence outside court. Let’s change the law on conditions of appeal! When a person appeals he must spend his appeal time in prison.
Cholwe
October 1, 2014 at 8:44 pm
No one can fight you in the political alena you are not anywhere closer to be fought just sit there and enjoy foolishness. People suffer for papers not the way you did it. Manipulation is not helpful.
wisdom
October 1, 2014 at 8:45 pm
Masumba should be freed enough is enough.
Isaac
October 2, 2014 at 10:09 am
For sure, he should be freed.
WEAKILEAKS
October 2, 2014 at 1:42 pm
icilitole chikala stop talkin ama ngwalala that one is a convict!!!!
lindo
October 1, 2014 at 8:45 pm
what in the military? You civilian. Just because you fire your pistol during voting, you think you’re military. Idoit, come out and face the real world. You are a convict and all the best. Hopeless con. My turn to visit
Cholwe
October 1, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Sorry father. Thank God you can alert our sleeping governments.
CHIZ~MAN
October 2, 2014 at 12:05 am
Kkkkkk…..bwafya!!!
amashinsha
October 2, 2014 at 12:39 am
Bantalamisoka bapompwe mwalaonaula ichalo cakwa Jehova Lesa.
wisdom
October 2, 2014 at 12:47 am
Masumba, Masumba, Masumba, i made a mistake to read this story. its not important to me.
obby moonga
October 2, 2014 at 8:04 am
Its sad news as the MP to do that for the whole intire world and the govt should look at it for punishment not to take him. to chimbokaila its bad to people and look at higean is important to the human.
Teny
October 2, 2014 at 8:36 am
Its SAD for the young man. May God bless him
Bulawa
October 2, 2014 at 9:08 am
Zambian prisoners are starved, packed into cells unfit for human habitation, and face beatings at the hands of certain guards or fellow inmates. Children, pregnant women, pre-trial detainees, and convicted criminals are condemned to brutal treatment and are at serious risk of drug-resistant TB and HIV infection.
himself
October 2, 2014 at 9:43 am
please allow me to request you ask MP SHAKAFUSWA why chazanga is still having water problems up to now.Our women do not sleep just waiting for water from 00hrs to 04hrs evry day.
The other thing is about putting up of a clinic in katete of kamaila area where he just put up a foundation and never to go back to finish it up.
akapondo
October 2, 2014 at 10:12 am
Nomba ka chikala, you thought it will be like mufumbwe.
IF NOT
October 2, 2014 at 11:29 am
Diploma from Matero te?
shilubemba
October 2, 2014 at 12:23 pm
Wamona iwe kamasumba ka you have stolen our moneys @ LBTC and you think we were happy with your stupidity? You have made us not to get the results because of your talkativeness. Just serve elo mulime sana cabbage bralibobedi.
dancing
October 2, 2014 at 12:30 pm
ukutemwa ukupuma leisure,what next,matero diploma.ikalafye mu prison mambala.
WEAKILEAKS
October 2, 2014 at 1:38 pm
elo ka chikala ne cisungu takaishiba, bukala bwa nama walemona fwe bakwata ipepa tutola fye, tomba kalukuluku stay in jail chikala masumba for now ok.