National Development Planning Minister Alexander Chiteme says he also dreams of becoming the president of Zambia someday but such ambitions must be managed.

And Chiteme says Roan PF member of parliament Chishimba Kambwili phoned Minister of Information Mulenga Kampamba to insult her during the fundraising dinner in Ndola.

Speaking when he featured on ‘The People’s Debate’ on Pan African Radio, Tuesday, Chiteme, who is also Nkana PF member of parliament, advised those with presidential ambitions to manage their aspirations.
 
“I would want to be President of this country one day. A person without ambition is a dead person. Today I am sitting here as Minister of National Planning, I wasn’t that a few months ago. I was a mare member of parliament and even last time I came here, I was a mare member of parliament for Nkana constituency. Before that, I was just a director in a company. So I have to grow my ambition and when I am minister, my ambition is to be President one day but when I fail to manage that ambition, that is where the problem begins. When you begin to think that here where I am seated, I can even sit there where your colleague is sited. You know that it’s a God given process. You cannot just jump from being foreign affairs minister into president in one day,” Chiteme said.

“What I am talking about is ambition management. I respect Honourable [Harry] Kalaba but he also needed to manage his ambition in a better way. So to come out of his ministerial appointment and to allege that it’s because of corrupt practices, you know you see a person that has got no point, you see a person that has jumped off the wagon to draw a line that Chishimba Kambwili is doing. I would have respected him further if he had actually jumped out of government and gave a valid reason because when you say that the PF is doing corrupt practices, he was PF and he is still PF. He was in Cabinet when all these policies where being implemented so how then he is going to come out and say there is corruption?”

Meanwhile Chiteme narrated that Kambwili called Mulenga to insult her last weekend.

“I was seated with Honourable Kampamba Mulenga next to me at the PF fundraising dinner on the Copperbelt, her phone rang and I picked it up and it was Honourable Chishimba Kambwili on the phone. The insults that he was saying…because I told him ‘hello this is Honourable Chiteme’ [he said] ‘alikwi kwisa? Ndefwaya ukulanda na Kampamba’ nati ‘ooh, nafumapo’ (‘where is she? I want to speak to Kampamba’, and then I said ‘she is not around’). He started now telling me the things that I should come and tell Kampamba. I can’t even say them here. It was insult after insult, telling her how he was going to come to her constituency, how she is what, how she is…. At that point I even now thought BaChishimba Kambwili, I respected him a lot. He is like the elder brother for me, his children come to my children, and they play together. I am totally shocked to hear all those insults that were being ‘palated’ at Honourable Kampamba Mulenga. So when she came back I said ‘umm Kampamba, efyo bakutukile bakambwili, tafiweme (the way Kambwili has insulted you, it’s not nice) whatever it is, please call him back and talk to him nicely,” narrated Chiteme.
  
“She picked up her phone and called back, she thought that it was going to be a better discussion [but] I was told that she was insulted the same way he insulted when I picked the phone. I know he is listening or he is going to be told but I don’t want you to call me because if you are going to call on my phone today, I am going to tell you because most of the time when I am on radio I talk about Honourable Chishimba Kambwili and how he is insulting everybody baselessly, my phone rings and he is there. This time I don’t want him to call me and I am just horrified at how an older man like him would stoop to the level of insulting a young woman like Kampamba. I am lost for words.”