PF NATIONAL mobilisation chairman Richard Musukwa says he is studying some PF members’ recent donations to their constituents despite banning the practice last month.

And Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ) general secretary Fr Emmanuel Chikoya hopes that the recent announcement by the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) and Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) that they are investigating donations by PF members and the splashing of cash on social media will not turn out to be a “sanitisation process”.

When asked to comment on the continued donations that had persisted, even after he banned the vice, citing Transport and Communications Minister Mutotwe Kafwaya’s recent donation of brand new vehicles worth K240,000 to wives of traditional leaders in Lunte constituency, Musukwa said he would study the continued donations.

“I already issued that statement to that effect and our position as PF will remain the same. Let me study the matter then I will come back to you with a comprehensive statement. I have been out in my (Chililabombwe) constituency so I only came into Lusaka yesterday (Tuesday),” said Musukwa in a brief interview.

And Fr Chikoya hoped that the investigations in the continued donations by some PF members by investigative wings would not turn to be a “sanitisation process” of illegal activities.

“Handouts are never and will never empower anybody. So, I want to state emphatically it doesn’t matter who is doing that, whether the highest office in the land or the little office in the land, handouts are not solving the Zambian problem. If I have a poor mentality, wrong attitude, you give me K1 million, I will spend it and then I will be back to begging. So, it is not a solution. The solution is to change in some cases how we educate our children so that at the end of the day, they have the relevant subjects that they need to study, according to the career path and their skills. So, the indications by the FIC and the DEC are very welcome, but we just hope that it moves from being basic to very proactive actions. We also want them not to be sanitisation processes where…‘No, there is nothing here.’ It is illegal for huge sums of money to be kept in people’s homes,” Fr Chikoya said in a separate interview.

“It is illegal for people instead of using mattresses and other things, they begin to use these things like money. You can see how the poverty mentality, what it does to a person, they think they are walking on money; you are not walking in money you are actually drowning in handouts! The young people of today need concepts, then they can convert into cash. Ill-gotten wealth does not stay. Hard earned income will stay and will be sustainable because you have earned it and you know how to make it and how to spend it. So, we need to help our young people to make money for themselves. So, I don’t regard them as empowerment.”

And he urged church and traditional leaders not to be influenced by donations by politicians as this would destroy the moral and social fabric of the country.

“Do not drive under the influence of alcohol is an instruction given to motorists because if you do, you cause accidents! It is the same advice and wisdom I am giving to our leaders: do not speak, do not assure because you have been given gifts because you will crush the destiny of this country. So, for me, it is not exciting, it is actually very painful to see people getting mesmerised and carried away by these gifts. We are in the rainy season, but it is raining cash, it is raining Mercedes Benzes, it is raining all kinds of donations. Do not be hoodwinked. So, dear child leaders, dear traditional leaders we have a bigger agenda, we have a bigger destiny to take care of these chiefdoms in a manner that brings development for all, not your own household. Do not be carried away by invitations and the bouquets that you were exposed to, whatever they can give in terms of land, in terms of farms infrastructure or cash, it is not going to last,” advised Fr Chikoya.