The gold gate: How rogue cops benefited

 

 

Panning for gold.

LUCY LUMBE and

JACK ZIMBA

 

THE gold fields of Kasenseli now lie quiet, off-limits to any intruder, but the perimeter fence still lies broken at various points, evidence of how determined those lured by the prospect of instant wealth were to lay their hands on the treasure.

At the gate, we are turned away by an uncompromising military captain in charge of the Zambia National Service contingent deployed to protect the area and safeguard the national asset.

The Zambia Gold Company, a subsidiary of the Government mining investment wing, ZCCM-IH, was stopped from further operations by the new government, pending investigations into the whole gold saga, and so the excavators lie idle.

But wind the clock two years backwards, Kasenseli was like a bright light to the moth, drawing thousands of gold prospectors.

Chief Chibwika, in whose chiefdom the gold fields lie, said the population of Kasenseli was about 700, but after the discovery of gold, it swelled to over 4,000.

He said the locals were overwhelmed, and described the activities that characterised the gold rush as “Sodom and Gomorrah”.  

In the wake of the gold rush, Government deployed dozens of police officers to protect the newly discovered gold fields and stop the theft of the mineral.

But instead of protecting the national resource, there are reports linking police officers to theft of the precious mineral.

At the height of the gold rush in 2019 some senior police officers were arrested and dismissed from service after bags of gold soil disappeared from the Mwinilunga police station.

In 2019, Moses Makalashi gave a detailed testimony to the Office of the President Special Division about the events he witnessed at Kasenseli, naming the people who were involved in the theft of gold, mostly senior party of officials of the Patriotic Front and police officers.

In a 26-minute audio recording that was later leaked, Makalashi calmly narrates what was happening to an agent he addresses as “Director Tembo”.

He narrates that after Government stopped the digging of gold, several bags of gold soil were transported from the mining site to Mwinilunga Police Station under police escort and party officials led by the then Patriotic Front (PF) North-Western Province chairperson Jackson Kungo.

But Makalashi said: “Later that night I received a call from Lusaka telling me that people were sharing the gold at the police station.”

Makalashi said on the night before it was reported that the gold had been stolen from the police station, he saw his Isuzu pick-up, which was being used by his driver called Mainza, driving out of the police station.

“Around 22 hours, I saw my Isuzu KB which I gave to Mainza driving out and I stopped it, but it was a police officer driving,” he said.

He said the police officer claimed he was going to pick up his wife in Kaleni, but Makalashi believes the vehicle was used to transport bags of ordinary soil which was exchanged with the gold soil that was taken from the police station.

In all, K24 million worth of gold is believed to have been stolen that night.

Makalashi named Kungo as the mastermind of the theft.

A few days after the disappearance of the gold from the police station, Jackson Kungo, Cathirine Mukuma, Timothy Mulusa, Humprey Katoka, Kenneth Kawatu, Christopher Mutalenu, William Zulu, Majory Sikwenya and Charity Kaswenda were arrested for theft of gold.

But in October 2020, the state entered a nolle prosequi in the case.

Kungo would later be brutally murdered on election day – August 12, 2021.

Today, Moses Makalashi says he still stands by his testimony and believes that those who stole the gold got away with it.

The question is why, despite such compelling witness accounts, nothing was done to bring culprits to book?

In the wake of the scandal, President Edgar Lungu appointed a commission of enquiry to investigate the involvement of party officials in the theft. But it turned out to be a purely party exercise, and the findings never reached any government office, and were never made public.

But the people who made submissions to the commission of inquiry made similar claims as Makalashi’s.

And as our investigation revealed, there were many junior ranking police officers who also participated in the theft, working as cartels on the gold fields.

One group of 12 officers used a local man in their illegal activity.

“The police came here in 2019. We met at those shops,” says Stanley Machai, pointing.

Stanley was engaged as a cook for the police officers who had been deployed to the Kasenseli gold fields.

“They took me inside the mine saying they wanted me to be their cook. I started working for them as a cook,” he told us.

But soon, Stanley found himself doing more than cooking and washing dishes – he began washing soil containing alluvial gold.

Stanley remembers exactly how it all began.

One day the police officers sent Stanley with some soil down to a nearby stream to wash.

“I took the soil to the stream and washed it. The following day they gave me some more soil to go and wash and I brought back whatever gold I found in the soil, and they gave me 10g or sometimes five grammes of whatever I brought back,” he said.

He said the officers would then sell the gold under the cover of darkness, usually between 19:00 and 03:00.

Stanley only remembers the name of one police officer in the group - John Banda.

Stanley said he paned for gold every other day for at least one month when he was told his services were no longer needed.

He said he was replaced by someone the officers brought from a different town.

Chief Chibwika said many of the people who had descended on the gold fields were connected to police officers.

Stanley earned 33g in total, which he sold for K380 per gram to a buyer. It was a small fortune for him. He used the money to build a house.

Stanley’s house is the more decent one at Kasenseli, and one of the few that have a coat of paint.

The Zambia Police Service says it does not know any of its officers who were involved in the gold gate apart from those who were arrested.

Police spokesperson Rae Hamoonga said no investigations have been launched to determine any wrong-doing by police officers who were deployed at Kasenseli.

In October last year, police officers were withdrawn from the gold fields and replaced by ZNS officers.

The Kasenseli gold saga remains an unsolved crime.