Roan Independent member of parliament Joseph Chishala says he is not shaken by the de-registration of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) because the party has been working out an alternative strategy to ensure that it remains functional.

And Chishala has accused Home Affairs Stephen Kampyongo of “cooking something fishy” in the de-registration of the NDC.

The courts last week granted the NDC leave to apply for judicial review of the party’s de-registration by the Registrar of Societies.

And in an interview with News Diggers! Thursday, Chishala said the de-registration of the party was not done in good faith, but said he was not shaken by the development.

“Personally, I think the de-registration of NDC has not be done in good faith because you know, when a party is registered, there was a group of people who registered the party and it consisted of about 10 office bearers in the first place. And those office bearers, eight of them wrote to the Minister (Kampyongo). And Mwenya Musenge also wrote to the Minister, but surprisingly, the Minister responded to Mwenye Musenge because that is an individual; he is not forming a quorum of the office bearers,” Chishala explained.

“And yet they also wrote to the Minister, but the funny part is that, upon responding to Mwenya Musenge, there was a press briefing by Chishimba Kambwili complaining to say ‘the Minister had not done the right thing by responding to an individual.’ A day later, the Minister responded to the eight office bearers with the same stance that he was upholding the decision by the Registrar of Societies, that the party is still de-registered. If the party is de-registered, and I remain an Independent MP, it doesn’t shake me in anyway because it is people that voted me into this office. Unless the people are the ones who said: ‘no, Joseph, you won’t be the MP for Roan, we don’t want you,’ I would have said, yes. But in this event, there is nothing that has shaken me!”

And Chishala wondered why Kampyongo responded to an individual as opposed to the whole group that had also petitioned the de-registration of the party

“I feel there is something fishy that is cooking around in the sense that there is no way a minister can act like that by responding to both letters. Obviously, he was only supposed to respond to one group, which was forming the quorum of the office bearers. It’s like these guys are afraid of CK. They know, for sure, that he is the one that can destabilize them. And he is the one that has facts on how these guys are managing our economy and the games they play because he has been in the system before,” Chishala added.

He, however, assured Roan constituents to remain calm as the party was working on an alternative to ensure that it was re-instated.

“The assurance is that they have to remain calm until all the channels are exhausted to make sure the party is re-instated. Everyone is anxious to know what is the way forward. If it so happens that after exhausting all the channels and, still, the party is de-registered, which I don’t think it will be, I will still continue mobilizing because even if you are an Independent, you need to know your own system of managing your people. And I am so confident that the situation we are in, NDC will still be on board once all the channels are exhausted. NDC is loved by so many people and I know there is something that the party is working on to make it re-instated and be functional,” said Chishala.