Maravi

Mulongoti's remark on wounded UNZA students disgusts HH

Mulongoti's remark on wounded UNZA students disgusts HH
By Roberta Muchagwe
Monday June 02, 2008 [04:01]

UPND President Hakainde Hichilema has described as disgusting information minister Mike Mulongoti’s statement that he was being populist by paying for the two UNZA students admitted to the UTH. Speaking on the UNZA Radio’s Lusaka Star magazine programme on Friday, Hichilema said what he did, to pay for the two students to be moved to a better ward at University Teaching Hospital (UTH), was a humane reaction.

Hichilema said Mulongoti and education minister Professor Geoffrey Lungwagwa’s reaction to the issue of the two University of Zambia (UNZA) students admitted to the UTH was embarrassing.

Hichilema said that Mulongoti misled the nation by stating on public television that one of the students who was shot in the chest was shot in the arm, the issue to look so simple.

“Then you (Mulongoti) reacted … to say I was being populist, Hakainde was being populist, Mike, that is disgusting!” said Hichilema.

He said Mulongoti should have been embarrassed because he (Hichilema) made a decision for him to move the students, especially the student who was shot in the chest, to a ward that had facilities in order to save their lives.

“You (Mulongoti) left a child, a young man with a bullet in his body and went away to mislead the nation,” he said.

Hichilema said at UTH when he asked why the student with the bullet imbedded in his chest was not being operated on, he was told that UNZA and the Ministry of Education had no money to take the student to a ward that would allow him to get best treatment.

“You left that young man to die on the bed, you the Minister of Information and the Minister of Education. That was utter embarrassment!” remarked Hichilema.

He said Prof Lungwagwa and Mulongoti’s reaction to his help to the students showed lack of leadership.

Hichilema thanked God that the student with the bullet in the chest was still alive.

“For me, that was a humane reaction. For a villager like me, that’s the way we react in the village,” he said.

The two students were shot at by police using live ammunition during the last demonstration at UNZA.

Labels: HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, MIKE MULONGOTI, POLICE BRUTALITY, UNZA

posted by MrK @ 5:28 PM