PF PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Emmanuel Mwamba says the party leadership is still constituting the central committee and he hopes that members like himself who have been anchoring the party for the last eight months will be considered.

And Mwamba says offices which were established in the name of ‘military cooperation’ in Ghana and Botswana operate like US military bases.

He was speaking when he featured on a Joy FM radio programme, Monday.

“They are still constituting the central committee. It was expanded from a number of 53 to go to about 80, they fielded in about 72 and there are still remaining slots, we are hopeful that they will remember that there are members like ourselves, like me, Chishimba Kambwili and Mutotwe Kafwaya that have been anchoring the party the last seven, eight months and I hope that in their considerations, they will remember that there are members like myself,” Mwamba said.

And Mwamba said the offices which were established in the name of ‘military cooperation’ in Ghana and Botswana were literally US military bases, warning that Zambia needed to be careful.

“If you see the security cooperations that were opened in Botswana or Ghana, you find that the military presence is not a desk office and a desk officer, no. It is literally almost like a base, but what was opened in the nomenclature is a security office of cooperation. So, you have to be very careful with what you are opening that up for,” he warned.

Mwamba said in countries like Djibouti, the African Union allowed the establishment of bases to protect the area from pirates.

“I visited Djibouti while I was Ambassador in Ethiopia and Djibouti has 11 international bases that includes the US, they have a base there, France, China, UK and even smaller countries like Qatar but this is for a specific reason, that part of the world there is straight, it is the busiest lane, it’s the busiest shipping lane and the shortest cut from Europe to Asia and vice-versa so we had recognised as African Union that the bases can be there to secure that area because it was subject to pirates, if you remember the Somalian pirates that terrorised the area 10 years ago,” he said.

When asked to highlight some of the key issues he could use to rate President Hakainde Hichilema’s leadership in comparison to his predecessor Edgar Lungu, Mwamba said he could not compare the two because each of them had their own way of governing.

“It’s not good to compare. Each leader brings a style of leadership, each leader has his unique way in which they handle national affairs, you can trace back from Dr [Kenneth] Kaunda, president [Frederick] Chiluba, you know each does have a style so to compare them, we will be comparing apples and oranges,” said Mwamba.