Sat, 30 Sep 2017 12:12:57 +0000
…Mulenga wants party to organise Sata memorial
By Bennie Mundando
MULENGA Sata approached us on Wednesday and asked us to organise his father’s memorial service this year to avoid last year’s confusion and not the lies that the Mast newspaper is peddling that he told us to respect his father, PF deputy secretary-general Mumbi Phiri has said.
Ms Phiri was commenting on the Mast story in which the tabloid quoted some anonymous sources as having said that Mulenga Sata had stormed the PF secretariat on Wednesday afternoon, furious that the party was harassing people that worked closely with his late father.
Ms. Phiri accused the Mast of lying and rubbished the story. “The Mast newspaper is lying as usual. Mulenga Sata came to see us at the secretariat. When he entered the secretariat, he found the party secretary-general Davis Mwila driving out because we were scheduled to have lunch at a restaurant near St. Ignitious with constituency officials from Chilanga and that is how he followed him.
“He just came to meet us and one of the things he told us was that he wanted this year’s memorial service for his late father to be handled and planned by the party to avoid a repeat of what happened last year where some family members held it in Mpika while others were in Lusaka with party officials turning up late for the event,” Ms. Phiri explained.
She explained that contrary to what she termed as lies in Thursday’s edition of the Mast newspaper, Mulenga Sata and the party officials had a fruitful and peaceful engagement.
“He gave us permission to plan the memorial service and that we should feel free to give family members any responsibilities that we felt could be done by them. I never heard him complain that there were people who worked closely with his father who were being harassed. As a mater of fact, we were already at the restaurant by 12:45 contrary to lies that he went to the secretariat at 13:00 hours.
“It is sad to have a paper which, when people are talking about reconciliation, it is scheming to divide the party and the country. We know they don’t want the PF and they don’t like individuals like me whom they always write lies about but they should know that they will never force me to support the people they support because they think they can take the reins of this country,” she said.
She said it had become evident that due to desperation for a saviour from its financial quagmire, the Mast newspaper had gone into a marriage of convenience with disgruntled politicians who were promising “a heaven on earth” once they strayed into the corridors of power.
