SURYA Energy Limited Exports Manager, Aditya Arora,38, of Lusaka’s Rhodes park area has been arrested for corrupt practices involving a K4,000 after he tried to flee the country.
Aditya is believed to have bribed a named officer from the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) in order for him to have his oil tankers included on a list of tankers that had been inspected and were due for inclusion in a petroleum products transportation licence.
Aditya who had already boarded that plan was removed and apprehended at Kenneth Kaunda Airport in Lusaka .
Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) Spokesperson Queen Chibwe said Aditya has been detained and is expected to appear in court on Monday.
“The arrest follows investigations in which it was established that Aditya offered a bribe of K4,000.00 to a named officer of the Energy Regulations Board (ERB) in order for the officer to include an oil tanker on a list of tankers that had been inspected and were due for inclusion in a petroleum products transportation licence.
Investigations have revealed that in May this year, Surya Energy Limited applied to have six oil tankers inspected by ERB for purposes of their inclusion in their road transportation license for petroleum products,” she said
She said the license that Surya Energy Limited had was valid till July 2024 and it has been established that on July 1st , this year, Surya Energy Limited only made four tankers available for inspection out of the six at their Mungwi Road garage.
“Following the inspection, approval was granted for the four tankers to be included in the road transportation license for petroleum products.
However, Aditya Arora later sent K4,000 as a bribe to a named ERB Officer who was one of the inspectors to facilitate the addition of another tanker on the list of inspected tankers for inclusion in the license. The ERB officer rejected the bribe and reported the issue to his superiors, who passed it on to the ACC,” she said.
Ms Chibwe added that in relation to the same matter, the Commission has also recorded a warn and caution statement from Aditya’s lawyer Mwansa Chambaila of Ituna Partners, Lusaka, for giving false information to an officer of the Commission.
“Mwansa is alleged to have provided information to the effect that Aditya was scheduled to travel out of the country on August 5th, 2022 when in fact Aditya was scheduled to travel the previous day, August 4th 2022. Alert officers managed to track Aditya and had him removed from the plane which he had already boarded.Aditya is detained in Police custody and is expected to appear in court on Monday August 8th 2022,for mention,” she said.
(Mwebantu, Friday, August 5th, 2022)