Patriotic Front deputy spokesperson Frank Bwalya says there is no government anywhere in the world that does not prioritise awarding jobs to ruling party cadres.

And Bwalya says the ruling party will not waste time discussing newly formed National Democratic Congress as that will derail it from improving people’s livelihood.

Speaking when he featured on 5Fm’s The Burning Issue yesterday, Bwalya said governments everywhere in the world prioritized their allies and cadres when awarding jobs.

This was after show host Zachariah Banda observed that only ruling party supporters were being appointed to boards of parastatals.

“There is no political party in the world that is going to disregard its associates, its members, its cadres from such appointments, there is no political party that will do that in the world. And no one should attempt to cheat anybody that ‘ifi ku America takwaba, ifi ku England takwaba!’ aweh! Nakwalesa kwine, efyo kwaba. Lesa asalile umo ukufyala umwana wakwe, not aba bambi (No one should lie that this doesn’t happen in England or in America. Even in God’s kingdom these things happen. He picked one person to bear his child, not these other ones),” Bwalya said,

He said it would only be a problem if those being appointed had no incompetent to serve in such positions.

“What we should focus on is competence. For people like Yamfwa Mukanga, he has been a politician for some time and people think that he is appointed just because he associates with the Patriotic Front, the man is an engineer and he brings a certain expertise and competence,” Bwalya said.

“Such things can only be an issue of people being appointed have no capacity to participate in the governance and establishment of these institutions at that level, resulting in these institutions failing to perform. If that were the case, the demand should be that the appointing authority consider appointing other people. I do believe that the people who are being appointed to be members of these boards have the capacity and required competence. You talked about our brother Mr Sunday Chanda (board member of the Zambia Airports Corporation). These boards require a mix, people with a legal background, engineering background, sometimes ordinary members of society could bring a certain contribution it could be a moral, psychological, group dynamics and so on.”

And Bwalya said the PF would not be distracted by parties like NDC which could soon return to the ruling party.

“This party is legally registered in this country and they have a right to operate and they have no right not to be talked about just as we also have no right not to be talked about. Nevertheless, their appearance on the political horizon, because they are still on the horizon, does not in any way modify our mandate, it doesn’t in any way modify the promises that we made to the people of this country and it does not in any way change our level or indeed pace of performance. So our main focus is on the people of Zambia to deliver because such delivery of the promises that we made translate into what Zambians are expecting from our government and I mean the PF led government in terms of improving their livelihood,” said Bwalya.

“This is what we are focusing on. If anyone is expecting us to abandon what we should be doing for this country and focus on other political parties, a new political party that has been formed, I think they are mistaken. Since we came into power as the PF, there are many parties which have been formed and some have gone back to PF including [mine] from kumpoto to kubwato. That’s how things go.”