FORMER Second Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Mwimba Malama has urged government to conduct the “clean up” in a fair manner, saying it’s not good to humiliate those suspected to have committed crimes in the previous administration.
And Malama has insisted that ZNBC is still only covering the ruling party, despite UPND’s complaints when they were in the opposition.
In an interview, Malama said Zambians might have voted for the UPND in order for them to “clean up”, but the process should be done in a fair manner.
“The current government is the government of this nation. They are governing everyone, they are governing all the members of parliament, including former presidents and ministers. Therefore, they must know that they carry that responsibility. They should know that even when they have power, they need to know how they approach those people they are suspecting. Because now we are seeing some kind of humiliating those who were in the past government, which is not good. And I am not saying they should not follow those who committed crimes, they should follow them,” Malama said.
“Probably that could be the reason why they were voted in, it is because maybe Zambian people wanted some kind of clean up. So let them do the clean up but without being unfair. Sometimes people follow fellow politicians because ‘this politician said this to me,’ that should not work like that. We are all Zambians, let them just do the right thing. You know what the Anti-Corruption Commission is doing, whether it is ACC or maybe it is something they are making up. Look at what happened at Amos Chanda’s house.”
And Malama said only UPND news was being aired on ZNBC, contrary to their complaints when they were in the opposition.
“I won’t judge them; it is too early but they should remember the promises they made to the Zambian people. They should be reminded that we have continued to see them on ZNBC alone contrary to what they lamented about when they were in opposition. We are still seeing UPND news. I support that but I still want to remind them and also remind those in opposition to understand how Times of Zambia, ZNBC, Daily Mail and ZANIS operate. I want those in government to understand how police officers operate. They were being called PF police by UPND, I don’t know whether they are still PF police. They need to understand that the police service is there to serve the government of the day and ensure that there is order in the country. Will it be fair for us in the opposition to call the Zambian Police that they are UPND like they were called when PF was in government?” he questioned.
Meanwhile, Malama said there was need for technocrats to plan for the Constituency Development Funds together with members of parliament.
“This Constituency Development Fund (CDF) needs technocrats together with the members of parliament to plan for it for the constituency. I also want to understand how they are going to implement it. For example, there are some areas which when I look at the money, it will require some people to help to plan out because K25 million is a lot of money, if people are organized, they can do a lot of things. So when it comes to the general management of this country, I think it’s not an easy thing for a new government to get settled. It takes time because governance is complicated and I am sure now they are even admitting that governance is not one plus one, it requires concentration. It requires support to some extent even from opposition, we should learn lessons as Africans, particularly Zambian people that we should not just be opposing for the sake of opposing,” said Malama.
