ACTING PF secretary general Nickson Chilangwa has described individuals joining the ruling party now as economic refugees and political prostitutes.

And Chilangwa says government should stop pushing the FTJ University agenda because it is not the only university which was put on ice.

Speaking on a Diamond TV Special Programme, Thursday, Chilangwa said from the people who had left PF so far, none were credible members.

“You know, there are people who are visitors, there are people who are voyagers, there are people who come and join for a gain. Those characters who are joining UPND today, they are not joining UPND because they want to make UPND popular. Those are economic refugees, they went there because they want to eat, they are men with no spine and women without any spine. They all are people without a character, they are people you can’t believe and trust. You believed in PF yesterday and today because PF lost governance [you leave], they are political prostitutes. How long did they stay in the other parties, people with that character always move. People with that political stamina always move. They are people who are highly mobile and there is nothing we can do. They are people who are economic refugees, and they wear the coat of political gurus,” he said.

“I can tell you the weak souls will not live in PF, the weak souls are going to leave, any weak soul is going to leave. What is happening now, we are now seeing the real characters of those who said ‘Lungu Pabwato’, and that these people just wanted to eat. So we are able to see those characters and those people. So far from all those people who have left, no one moves us as a party that we have lost a credible member. In fact honourable [Ephraim] Belemu, honourable the other one from Namwala, they joined us a few weeks or month before the election, so they have gone back to where they belong, but how long are they going to be there? In fact, are they going to be trusted in UPND? No! When UPND loses in 2026 and you make a list of all those who are defecting to UPND and when UPND loses in 2026, you tell me if those characters who are resigning now are going to be in UPND.”

And Chilangwa said government should stop pushing the FTJ University agenda because it was not the only university that was put on ice due to insufficient funding.

“Is there anybody in Patriotic Front who has been indicted for chewing the money? We have characters in governance who do not want to be truthful. I like to believe honourable [Situmbeko] Musokotwane is a truthful and honest man, he will be able to take you through the process of the money. Was the money released? This is exactly what we must be zeroing in. We have colleagues at the Ministry of Finance who are keeping quiet, when all this confusion is ongoing, why are they keeping quiet? What is their agenda? Is FTJ project the only project that was put on ice in the history of this country? The answer is no,” he said.

“Have there been other projects in the history of this country that have been put on ice due to insufficient funding? Do not continue pushing the agenda of FTJ University, is it the only project that was put on ice? Why are you not listening to a voice of reasoning? Are there no projects in Luapula that were completed? All the projects that we lined up, we had a manifesto and we said we are going to do that. You know that money has a trail, if money is transferred from one particular account, it goes, it goes and you can follow it up. If money was released, if indeed it was released, Ministry of Finance must help us to say yes money was released, it was paid to ABC. If the contractor was indeed paid money and that money was not put to good use, so there is no way that the people of Luapula must lose on this project. This project must go ahead.”

He said government had met financial obligations on the project but no money was released.

“The biggest tragedy that this country has is to follow the smoke and leaving the fire behind, that is the biggest tragedy. Because of that tragedy we have a government in place, we have got some characters and human beings in place, in governance right now who would want people to run away with the smoke and leave the fire behind. When you talk about 33 million, it is not money that the Republic of Zambia raised as counterpart funding. If you look there is a statement that I issued on the 18th of July in 2019, the thrust of that was to tell people and assure people that the contractor was on site and that the project was on,” said Chilangwa.

“I do not think in that statement that I issued at the site at that particular time I talked about money. I said the project is here. From my perspective when I say ‘we have met our financial obligations’ that is a loaded statement, you need to break it down, what does it mean? Government committed itself that we are going to finance this project. There is no way in that statement where I am saying money has been released. Financial obligations and release of resources and issues of money are totally two different statements. So release of money and financial obligations are totally different things. Financial obligations can be documents, it doesn’t mean cash.”