Patriotic Front Chilanga parliamentary candidate for the upcoming by-elections Maria Langa says the constituency needs a theme park to reclaim the area as the first tourist destination.

And PF National Chairperson for Women Jean Kapata says the Electoral Commission of Zambia had given her party a yellow card for failing to control their members during the filing-in of nominations for the Chilanga by-elections.

Speaking when she featured on PF Interactive Forum, Wednesday, Langa said she would reclaim Munda Wanga as a tourist capital by partnering with Disney World in America once elected in office.

“Through my vision for Chilanga, we also need a theme park for Munda Wanga. I am looking at a theme park. I have travelled widely, I have seen Disney World in America, there is Disney in China, there is also Disney in Dubai and another Disney will come to Chilanga. I will make sure we partner with Disney World in America so that we can bring Disney World in Chilanga and so that Chilanga can become a tourist destination again. You know, Chilanga was the first tourist destination with Munda Wanga and I want to claim that again,” Langa pledged.

Langa added that she wanted to ride on Keith Mukata’s agenda of developing the area by creating more schools.

“I want to develop Chilanga that will bring in more schools. Of course, my predecessor, Keith Mukata, did his part but I want to ride on what he has done already and even push it further so that the development agenda for Chilanga is rolled out and speeded up. So, as Maria or indeed as Patriotic Front, we are looking at bringing more schools in Chilanga. For example, GRZ in Makeni area, Chilongolo where we have a secondary school but after that the parents have to look for money. My agenda for schools is to build more classroom blocks, for example, in Kalundu,” Langa pledged.

She also said she would lobby for a university, among other social amenities for the constituency.

“And if anything, I would love, maybe, to have a university, why not? I am going to lobby for a university in Chilanga so that our people can be able to get more education, and trade schools in areas like Namalomwe where we don’t have schools,” she said.

“Chilanga ward is the ward, which is housing Lafarge, used to be called Chilanga Cement. You know, Chilanga has built the mines, has built from Kariba to East Africa but there is nothing to show for it. So, this is the time to build Chilanga itself. So, we would like to create more jobs in the construction sector, especially like housing Lafarge. And not only housing Lafarge, we are also housing Oriental Queries, which is also the producer of cement. And also, we have a lot of quarries around Chilanga, and my dream for the farmers is to create the jubilee market,” Langa narrated, adding that she is also targeting to tap into the heavy volumes of traffic passing through the constituency.

Meanwhile, Kapata accepted the party’s punishment from ECZ and admitted that the party went overboard by failing to control its members during nominations.

“As a party we were cautioned by ECZ, they gave us a yellow card and to me that is punishment enough. We are law-abiding people. It’s unfortunate that we were there and we could not control some of our people to come in. But as it stands today, our candidate filed in successfully and she is going to stand. The calls [to have her disqualified] simply mean that they have been defeated already. We are winning this election whether they want it or not,” Kapata vowed, in response to a question from a journalist who wanted to know PF’s position on the calls to have Langa disqualified from the Chilanga by-election race for misconduct.

She said those calling on ECZ to disqualify her party from the race were already defeated.

“I would like to mention that disqualification of a candidate can only be done by ECZ itself and not calls coming from people who are already defeated. They are defeated already because our nomination was declared successful. She successfully filed in her nomination on that particular day. So for people to start calling for our candidate to be disqualified simply means they have lost it. We have defeated them on the ground and we move,” she said.

Kapata further said she will go ahead and enforce the national land policy soon after consulting with traditional leaders.

“I want to mention here that the national land policy is not about anyone, whoever they can be. It is about the Zambian people, the protection of the Zambian people. And as a party, we will make sure that we protect the Zambian people through the policy. We are waiting to consult the House of Chiefs, after that, as Minister of Lands, I will go ahead and put the enforcement on the table for the Zambian people,” said Kapata.