Sun, 17 Sep 2017 07:48:25 +0000
By OSCAR MALIPENGA and CHIKUMBI KATEBE
UNTIL he was fired, Chishimba Kambwili never saw corruption and stealing taking place under the Patriotic Front (PF) government when he served as cabinet minister, member of the party’s
publicity committee Brian Hapunda has observed.
Mr Hapunda has charged that it was absurd for Mr Kambwili to start seeing corruption which he never saw in a government that he served for over six years.
Yesterday, Mr Kambwili was quoted in The Mast Newspaper warning PF government to stop stealing or he will continue disclosing their deals going on in President Edgar Lungu’s administration.
Reacting to Mr Kambwili, Mr Hapunda reminded him that Zambians were not interested in politics of personal maligning but issue-based.
“It is unfortunate that Mr Kambwili has decided to take the route he has taken and especially that it is coming from a man of his stature and only yesterday he was in PF government and all these things that he is complaining about corruption and stealing he did not complain about them. He was minister of Youth and Sports, Foreign Affairs, and Information first appointed by late Micheal Chilufya Sata and secondly President Edgar Lungu.
“Mr Chishimba Kambwili did not see all these wrongs that he is seeing now. The question that I wish to pose to him is that, when he was in PF government as cabinet minister was there no corruption and stealing that now he has left PF he is now able to see these things and speak about them? Does it mean that when he was in PF everything was ok and his eyes were not seeing and that now he is out of PF he is able to see?” Mr Hapunda said.
He said Mr Kambwili was actually trying to get public sympathy pretending to be fighting corruption which he did not see when he was minister.
“When he was in the corridors of power he did not see all these things so we wish to call on him that he must be a man of integrity and that he must not begin to act bitter simply because he was fired from government and now wants to stand on an anthill and begin to accuse President Lungu of hatred against him, accuse PF government of engaging in corruption which does not exist,” Mr Hapunda said.
Meanwhile, Mr Hapunda has demanded for an apology from Mr Kambwili for disrespecting Information and Broadcasting Services minister Kampamba Mulenga private life.
“He must apologise to Ms Kampamba Mulenga and the women for talking about her bedroom. It is very unfortunate and an act of disrespect to the women of this country and that he must apologise to Ms Kampamba Mulenga and the women for disrespecting her private matrimonial issues,” he said.
Mr Hapunda has also reminded Mr Kambwili that Zambians were not interested in politics of personal maligning but issue-based.
And National Restoration Party NAREP) says the same way Chishimba Kambwili cannot distance himself from the PF successes in Government, he is equally neck deep in all of his allegations of looting and high levels of corruption in the Government today.
NAREP national secretary Ezra Ngulube said there was no way the former information minister could claim to be clean of all the dirt he was alleging in public when he had been part and parcel of the Government he was accusing.
He said Mr Kambwili could accuse the PF of anything that would not touch him because he was party to all the decisions that were made in the ruling party and Government which he served since inception.
“So Mr Kambwili should not think he can begin fooling the Zambian people by going round saying there is a lot of looting in Government just because he is not there anymore,
“Why didn’t he resign from the Government when he saw all those ills going that he should be talking about it now when he is out of Government?” he said.
