The confusion that has been reported in Lundazi over the recent donation of items to the local hospital needs to be sorted out without delay to ensure there is peace and sanity in the nation.
It needs to include what the procedure should be for one to donate to a government institution.
By so doing, it would also protect civil servants from being branded as being opposition sympathisers especially when the donors do not belong to the ruling United Party for National Development.
Our concern stems from the unhappy developments in Lundazi that has seen the transfer of a doctor who received a donation from the local Member of Parliament.
This action attracted the wrath of the UPND leaders who tried to stop the donation from taking place.
The donation – of blankets and mattresses – went ahead because the doctor, much to the objections of the UPND cadres, prevailed that it should go ahead. According to Ms Brenda Nyirenda, the Lundazi MP on the Patriotic Front ticket, the head of the district hospital, a Dr Mugala has been forcibly transferred after receiving a donation of mattresses and blankets from her.
On the day of the donation, the UPND stormed the hospital and demanded that the donation be halted and threatened that whoever was going to receive the donation would have to suffer dire consequences.
Dr Mugala however asked Ms Nyirenda to proceed with the donation which did not please the UPND cadres and the medical doctor has since been told to leave the hospital for facilitating and receiving the donation.
“I am so disheartened that my donation of mattresses and blankets to Lundazi Hospital, which is in my constituency has resulted into the transfer of Dr Mugala. On the day of my donation, the UPND cadres attempted to block me from proceeding with the gesture. But Dr Mugala who was the head of the hospital intervened and received the donation, said Ms Nyirenda.
In defending the cadres, Mr Johabi Mtonga, the Eastern Province UPND chairman says the donation which has resulted into the transfer of the doctor was not sanctioned by the District Commissioner or the Mayor and had to be stopped.
Mr Mtonga said what he had objected to was that Ms Nyirenda was making the donation without informing the District Commissioner and the Mayor and that the UPND cadres were in order to attempt to block the donation.
“… But what happened was that the MP decided to make a donation without informing the DC and the Mayor. And these are leaders of the UPND government in the district. So as the UPND, we decided that the donation should not go ahead and we are within the law. Whatever the UPND cadres do, they do so within the law,” Mr Mtonga said.
We do not think such skirmishes are necessary especially in a functioning multi-party democratic country.
But in the absence of clear guidelines, and considering the “bad blood” among the key political players, such scenes are likely to repeat themselves when those in power think they must lord it over all and sundry.
Let sanity prevail.
