STOP COMEDY
THE comedy being played out in Kitwe involving some councillors and UPND officials against the Deputy Mayor, Mr Felix Malasha, makes very sad reading.
It shows how some people out of petty jealousy or differences can resort to such uncouth behaviour as to accuse an innocent person of wrongdoing.
All this is with the intention of making their colleague look bad in the eyes of society.
On Wednesday, some suspected UPND officials and councillors accused Mr Malasha, who is also Parklands ward councillor of subdividing land between Mindolo Secondary School and Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation (MEF).
But, Mr Malasha denied being involved in the illegal allocation of land, saying it was a fake story being fabricated by his enemies.
Mr Malasha, however said he was aware that the whole scheme was aimed at denting his image by people who were not happy that he was the Deputy Mayor.
Our investigations revealed that some UPND officials and councillors were behind the story because they were not happy that he decided to contest the position of Deputy Mayor when the party wanted another councillor, Mr Alex Mwango to stand.
They have since been trying to make life hard for him and in their bid to “fix” Mr Malasha, they insinuated that he was involved in the illegal land transaction involving Mindola Secondary School bordering the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation.
We are glad that the Kitwe City Council has cleared Mr Malasha of any wrong doing and explained the background to the Mindolo land.
The KCC Public Relations Manager, Ms Chola Mwamba said the story circulating on some social media platforms alleging that Mr Malasha and council employees, were illegally demarcating the land belonging to Mindolo Secondary School was not true.
“In this case, the accurate position is that on November 3, 2021, Council Committee on Planning and Information Management Systems considered applications for Regularisation of Residential of Plots by citizens in Mindolo.
Ms Mwamba added that,” the committee observed that there was need to verify whether the said land and the land for Mindolo Secondary School which the Ministry of Education had requested the council to help the school acquire title were not one and the same.
“The committee felt there was need to engage the Ministry of Works and Supply to advise on the school boundary before a decision could be made.
The committee recommended that the application be approved, subject to verification of the school boundary with the Ministry of Works and Supply.”
We are therefore baffled as to how Mr Malasha’s detractors wanted to implicate him in a matter he was not involved in.
Our worry is that councillors and UPND officials might spend time fighting amongst themselves over trivial matters at the expense of serving the people.
We implore the UPND leadership to step in and ensure that it disciplines troublemakers from within its ranks so as not to distract those who have offered their services to serve the community.
We feel Kitwe provides an ideal environment of democracy at work as the top two officials of the council represent different parties – the mayor belonging to the Patriotic Front.
The earlier the Kitwe troublemakers are identified and sorted out, the better.
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