People’s Party president Mike Mulongoti says whether the impeachment motion against President Edgar Lungu succeeds or not, it will send a message to the world that there’s a crook in state house who has committed various offences.

And Mulongoti says it’s unacceptable for the government to charge people for drilling boreholes as if gound water belongs to the Patriotic Front.

On Friday, State House press aide Amos Chanda told journalist that President Lungu was no moved by the impeachment motion because the opposition UPND did not have sufficient numbers in Parliament.

But in an interview with News Diggers! Mulongoti said whether the impeachment motion succeeded or not a message would be sent that there was a crook in State House.

“The mistake that Mr Amos Chanda is making is assuming that an impeachment process is a simple matter. An impeachment process is an indication to the citizens of Zambia and to the world at large that there’s a crook in State House. There’s a person who has broken the law. So whether it succeeds or not the message will be sent to the citizens of Zambia and the world at large that the President in state house has committed various offences. It may take time but there’s one thing about the law, it catches up with you eventually,” Mulongoti said.

He said sooner or later, there would be no member of parliament to defend President Lungu and he would be in court alone.

“The reasons that have been tabulated for wanting to impeach him are not unreasonable. Let us see what happens along the way. Whether they win because of their numbers you wait, when along the way Mr Lungu is targeted alone as an individual, there will be no MPs to defend him. We have seen Presidents in court, you mean they had no MPs? It’s a matter of time, we are not worried about that. We are worried about the principle. If you have made a mistake show remorse,” he said.

“Mr Amos Chanda is one of the biggest beneficiaries to go and dance into whatever they go in the world. What do you expect him to say, of course he wants to support because he’s a beneficiary.”

And Mulongoti wondered why the government was demanding money from people for accessing ground water.

“The PF entered government with the promise that there will be less taxes and more money in people’s pockets. It has turned out that there are more taxes now and less money in people’s pockets. We have seen the introduction of different types of taxes using all kinds of descriptions. It does not matter whatever semantics they use in introducing these taxes but what’s important is that people are beginning to see through these taxes. You have tax on property, tollgates, all kinds. Now they are even introducing tax on boreholes where citizens spend their own money to dig boreholes. They put pumps and connect to power then somebody just walks in and says ‘I want to tax you for using this borehole’ as if the water which is in the surface was created by PF. The water which God gave us,” he said.

“They have failed to provide water in the cities. Like Lusaka we have had no water in Kabulonga for continued periods. In the meantime, the people are trying to help themselves to avoid that inability of theirs; through incompetence and dishonest conduct, they want to follow us where we have made our own arrangements efficiently and want to tax us. That’s unacceptable. What’s their contribution to my digging a borehole, what’s their contribution to servicing that borehole? It’s unfair,” he said.

Mulongoti charged that the PF had become more cruel after testing the sweetness of power.

“They have wasted money from the treasury. They were spending money and now they have discovered that their incompetence has emptied the treasury. Even the people who were lending them money, now they have even stopped because they have no capacity to pay back. So the question of taxes is the most annoying thing. They are living in comfort, flying all over to New York to go and dance in night clubs and coming here asking us to contribute more money to their wastefulness, that’s unacceptable,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mulongoti said President Lungu should allow people to probe his origins because he also probed the late Fredrick Chiluba when he was a lawyer.

“I was asked about my letter to the public protector over the origin of Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu. Now as a lawyer he is one of those who probed the origins of the late Dr Chiluba. So if it was good for him to participate in the probing of the origin of Mr Chiluba as a Congolese, he must feel comfortable for us to prove where he comes from. If he didn’t participate we would say ‘oh yeah ‘, but here is the man who participated very actively and happily. So let him be happy as well for us to probe who he is. We are not asking for a fight, we are asking for him to cooperate and simply say, this is my village, village headman, this is my chief, this is my mother, father and these are my grandparents. Simple questions that you and I can answer,” said Mulongoti.