FORMER State Procurement Board (SPB)chairperson, Charles Kuwaza, could land in trouble after failing to appear before the Parliamentary Privileges ad-hoc-committee investigating him on a contempt of Parliament charge yesterday.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
The committee was set up to try Kuwaza for allegedly failing to respect legislators during a hearing on how the SPB awarded a tender for electricity meters.
“We had invited him to give us his side of the story, but he could not make it. We will now consult the office of Counsel to Parliament to decide on action to take,” committee chair and Mazowe West MP Kazembe Kazembe said.
Kazembe then allowed six MPs appearing before the committee to give oral evidence regarding Kuwaza and the legislators gave damning testimony against the former SPB boss.
They accused Kuwaza of being arrogant, addressing the committee like he was speaking to a “burial society”, misrepresenting facts and behaving in a manner that constituted serious contempt of Parliament.
The legislators noted that Kuwaza’s “antics” had delayed the Mines committee from producing a report on electricity tenders for two years, misrepresented facts to Parliament even through an email, and behaved in a manner that constituted serious contempt of Parliament.
Kuwaza was last year charged with contempt of Parliament after concealing information on how the SPB had awarded a tender to a company that was charging $356 million when another company had offered the same electricity meters for $13 million.
