THE Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) has seized property worth K 5.4billion (KR5.4million) from defaulters.
Speaking to journalists, shortly after a site tour of two of the seized properties in Lusaka yesterday, CEEC communications and public relations manager Glenda Masebe said the commission was pursuing 17 cases involving defaulters who had failed to honour their loan repayments.
“Out of the 17 cases that the courts have ruled in our favour, we have been granted writ of possession of seven properties and we expect to recover a total of K5.4 billion (KR5.4 million) and this figure includes the accrued interest to date. The initial amount disbursed by the commission to the seven entities is about K4.2 billion,” she said.
She named some of the properties seized in Lusaka as Emmams Motel in Kafue district, belonging to Emmanuel Munthali .
Ms Masebe disclosed that Emmams Motel who got a loan facility of K1.940 billion, only paid three part installments amounting to K58.2 million, with outstanding arrears of about K2.3 billion, with interest.
She said Emmams who received their loan from the commission in 2009, have defaulted in payments since 2010.
“The loan given was for tenure of five years and was due for completion of payment in November 2014,” she said.
She named the other facility re-possessed as One Africa Enterprise, who have only paid K5 million from the initial K250 million they received from CEEC in April 2010.
Ms Masebe said One Africa Enterprise received the loan meant for improvement of their operations, and that this loan was for a period of three years.
One Africa owes the commission a total of K297 million arrears for both principal and interest.
The commission has since sounded a warning to other property owners who have not yet paid their arrears to do so before measures such as those taken on these entities were extended to them.
Ms Masebe said the commission had embarked on a mission to ensure that their debt recovery system was enhanced.
“Two months ago we repossessed a farm in Ndola, and I mentioned that the commission has embarked on a serious mission to ensure that debt recovery is enhanced. We were initially at about 42 per cent loan recovery, which is not very good for us, and now we are at about 44 per cent, but our target is 100 per cent because we want to ensure that government funds are got from every corner of this country,” she said.
Other properties repossessed included an abattoir in Itezhi Tezhi and some property in Solwezi.
Ms Masebe said the re-possession exercise would be extended countrywide.
CEEC needs to be doing some ground work and background checks before these loans are disbursed.Due diligence is important.Most of these pipo who got loans are MMD party cadres with no business accumen in them.So CEEC go all the way as this is tax payers money.
serves you right ceec.. i saw this coming you denied genuine people these loans and gave them to the already rich people mostly mmd ministers instead of the intended. There was no fairness i wrote my proposal using my hard earned resources and submited it to kasama only to be turned down yet i saw the rich of my district recieving the funds. Lets hope our current government wil look in the plight of the hardworking zambians with limited resources.
This is yet another typical example of how selfish MMD was. These loans were only granted to MMD cadres. instead of granting small amounts so that many citizens can benefit, minsters accessed huge loans thereby reducing the chances of ordinary citizens. The whole criteria need to be reviewed so that this initiative can benefit the ordinary citizen.
# Ba Avogadro# I have not seen the name of an MMD Minister in this report or any other CEEC report. It would be useful to name them now if you are serious with your accusations after all they now have nobody to protect them. Why are you not mentioning them. So it is either cowardice or you are re-using the same Post Newspaper propaganda. As a Zambian you have a right to vote for a Party of your choice without having to justify your choice. So if you voted for PF you do not need to justify it with lies about MMD Ministers which you can not prove even with the whole police task force employed to follow MMD supporters as if it is a crime to be one. I am not MMD and not PF either but I love to have a Zambia where all political parties are equally free to operate and mobilise their members
Its seems without passing judgement that the loans are for the people in Government or connected. If these loans are for Zambian, let a common Zambian access them. We are all developing one Zambia
thats my govt at work
One Africa Enterprise got K250m and only paid back K5m? Who are these people behind these loans? This is abuse of worst kind.
CEEC is a Joke??? It was meant for Good intentions but got messed up because it became an MMD cadre loan machine. People with true realistic Young Entrepreneurs were never entertained; it is all Nchekelako, friends and Family nonsense. Get serious with your loans and empower people that can truly make a difference and able to repay the loans.
May be the government could do well to ask Mr. Mmembe and Mr.Nchito to pay back K18bn owed to DBZ rather than harassing Judges who asked them to pay back. It appears that some debtors are more equal than others.
I know about eight (08) people here on the copperbelt who have never paid a dime towards the CEEC loans. It will be interesting to see how this will be handled.
Tu lelo leshafye!!
Is this Jacob Sikazwe still the Chairman? This man and his Marbel stole big time from CEEC. Jacob gave himself a big loan to build a hotel. Has he paid back?
It is Marbel Mungomba who was gicing these loans to her relatives. The law must follow her for abuse of office.
Every dog has its day