Lusaka Province PF acting chairman Paul Moonga has charged that the people of Katuba Constituency voted for a tribe instead of development, saying he feels sad to be Tonga.

Speaking to News Diggers! Moonga who was the PF’s campaign manager for party candidate Zacks Mwachilele in the Katuba by-elections regretted that there was so much Tonga influence in the area.

“I want thank the people of Katuba again for the number of votes they gave us. Yes we lost, a loss is painful always and you can’t pretend that you are not upset with a loss. But looking at Katuba, its just a stone-throw from Lusaka, yet it’s totally underdeveloped. For a person who was born there, I went to school from sub A to Grade four at a school called Malishashi now, which was Lyempe before. I see the same ground I played football on as a young boy and there is no change. It’s not a school that you would be proud of which produced Paul Moonga. If you go to the area I lived, it’s totally a bush. It was even far much better before when my father was there, it’s looking so bad. You would regret [to say], ‘what is wrong with these people here’. The area is so underdeveloped, there is nothing you can point at,” Moonga said.

“And when you tell these people, ‘let’s be with the government of the day to be able to bring development because the area councillor and member of parliament is the conduit to bringing development in an area’, they refuse. People in Katuba, from the time of my father, they have always belonged to the opposition. So you find that there is so much Tonga influence in Katuba, there is an influx of the Tongas who only believe in the opposition. It’s so sad, sometimes I feel so sad that I am a Tonga, personally myself. And I have so many Tonga relatives there [in Katuba] but they don’t seem to understand, for them what is important is tribe and that is why the people of Katuba vote on tribal lines.”

And Moonga said opposition leaders could never think of developing Katuba because they think government would claim credit for that.

“The opposition can never think of development because they think that when they take development to an area then the people will appreciate the government, it’s unfortunate. So if the people of Katuba think that they can be in opposition perpetually; Bampi has won elections, he’s now our leader. Congratulations to Bampi, he has won elections. But can Bampi come and work with us? Is he willing to come and celebrate independence day with us at State House? Is he willing to be invited by the President to come to State House? The answer is no! So if you are voting for someone who cannot work with the government of the day, that vote is wasted!” Moonga said.

“Here is a good example, the Council Chairperson for Kaoma, just going for a function of the President in Kaoma, the man was suspended, for carrying out his civic duties. So how are the MPs and councillors of UPND going to bring development to the areas where we are not [as the ruling party]? So the people of Katuba made their choice, but the question is, are they willing to use that position to bring development? The answer is no! So it’s up to Bampi now to stand up and say ‘me I am different, I have won elections and I will work with President Edgar Lungu’. People have spoken and for us, we’ve accepted the results, we lost.”

Meanwhile, Moonga said PF was likely to grab Katuba parliamentary seat from UPND in 2021 if the party did its homework well, adding that PF had continued gaining ground in the opposition strongholds.

“We have gained in terms of numbers beyond UPND, we won two wards out of seven wards. If we do our homework properly, come 2021, Katuba is coming back to PF. We’ve gained a lot and overall results countrywide, UPND is going down in their strongholds. You see what happened in Western Province? They are losing out. So the people of Katuba, in the one year and seven months remaining, which I know Bampi will fail them because he has no capacity, come 2021 if we do good work, Katuba is winnable,” said Moonga.