THE Patriotic Front on the Copperbelt has suspended Chingola Constituency Chairman Francis Chileshe for failing to help members to register as voters.

Chileshe is also accused of failing to get a voter’s card for himself and failure to provide leadership in the voter registration exercise.

PF Copperbelt Provincial Secretary Bernard Zulu has confirmed Chileshe’s suspension.

Zulu said the Chingola District Executive has been directed to suspend Chileshe for underperformance in the first phase of voter registration of party members in the structures under his leadership.

“You have have a Constituency Chairman who has not registered as a voter by now. He has also failed to help party members to get voters’ cards,” Zulu said.

He said the provincial leadership had set targets of members within PF structures to be registered within a stated period.

He said Chileshe performed below the party’s expectation.

Zulu said the Copperbelt PF Provincial Chairperson Nathan Chanda had directed that there shall be no party programme that shall be superior to the voter registration exercise.

“Sadly, today when Mr Chanda had gone to Chingola met Mr Chileshe and his executive for (to) review his performance, he decided to delegate to his vice chairperson on pretext that he was attending another function.Further when the registers for PF members was demanded, the delegated person could not provide them. As a result the provincial team was left without option but to ask the district to suspend him. What we want is our inner circles to provide a precedence before we can begin to go out to ask for votes from the Zambians,” said Chanda.

However, sources told News Diggers that Chileshe’s executive was given K10, 000 for mobilization of members to register as voters but only managed to make some progress in six wards out of the 17 wards of the constituency.

When reached for a comment, Chileshe said he was in shock and could not comment on the matter.