Opposition Rainbow Party General Secretary Wynter Kabimba says the Political Parties Bill is a conduit for the ruling party to syphon money from the treasury, but added that the PF would not be in government after 2021.

Speaking on Prime TV’s Oxygen of Democracy programme, Kabimba who is former justice minister said in Africa, there was no law that the ruling party would pass without first calculating the direct benefit from it.

“My reading of this bill and its provision is that there have been very little focus on what it is intended to achieve. There are a number of provisions there that actually conflict with the constitution especially the Constitution Amendment Act number 12, 2016. There are other provisions that are actually not practicable and realistic. There is lack of realism. You tend to arrive at this conclusion that this is work fundamentally of copy and paste from some other legislation in Africa. Look at the bill; to be honest with you up to now I don’t know what it is intended to achieve except to use it as conduit by PF to channel money from the treasury to PF,” Kabimba said.

“I tell you that I will come back here 5, 10 years down the road God willing and I will tell you that this is what I was saying and this is what is happening. Except that PF will not be there in 2021 is a comfort. This is Africa, there is nothing that the ruling party will do that is not in their benefit or interest. We think that this is a bill in deceit and dishonest so that the PF can use us as treasury horses to ride on and get the money from the treasury then finance the activities.”

He expressed concern that the Bill would not consider the views of statekholders.

“We are participating in the so called stakeholders consultative meeting to just establish that intention. I want to see the end product to this. I see it taking the same route of the constitution where you convene meetings of stakeholders and end up with a product that is completely different from what stakeholders said. The minister of Justice tried to assure us about the bill but he is the last person to assure us. I think it is a bad intention,” he said.

And Kabimba said President Edgar Lungu was blind to corruption.

“There is rampant corruption around and its only Edgar who doesn’t see it. The man who has all the machinery to the state at hand, he said at the airport when he arrived that ‘give me credible information on any of my ministers involved in corruption and if its credible I will act on it’. He is the only man in Jerusalem who doesn’t know that Christ has risen. If you ask a marketeer about corruption they will answer you that its there because they see it. They see how a man they lived with in Chawama is now MP or how a councilor is now affluent. The fact that ordinary people on the streets are silent does not mean that they don’t see corruption,” he said.

“…if you remember last year he made a similar statement. When the report of the auditor general came out and there were scandals and expenditure that was unjustified, Edgar said ‘why are you coming to me? Let ACC, the police and law enforcement agencies get on with the work’. Today one year later, there will be a budget that will be presented on Friday and another auditors general report will be presented. Nobody has been arrested meaning the Auditor General was wrong but if Edgar had said, ‘go and arrest Wynter Kabimba’ they would have been at my house even if they don’t have fuel they would have found. But when he says ‘go and arrest these criminals that are bleeding the treasure of this country’ no one takes the step.”

He said President Lungu was repeating the mistake Frederick Chiluba made to dish out money when he wanted a third term of office, adding that Zambian politicians were dull students of history.

“Why are Zambian politicians such dull students in history? What the PF is doing today is what Chiluba did when he was anticipating to go for a third term. Whom didn’t Chiluba give money in this country? But when the issue of third term came up they told him that ‘no sir we don’t want you’. Why cant Edgar learn lessons from that. Who tells him that he can do whatever he wants to do in this country as long as he goes around dishing money he can be there up to infinity?” asked Kabimba.

“Who is accounting for that money that is going to marketeers? Under which budget is it provided. There are many poor people in this country including marketeers that need to be uplifted from poverty. What we need are economic programs”