MPs will get high gratuities due to Rupiah’s greed, says Sata

MPs will get high gratuities due to Rupiah’s greed, says Sata
Written by Chibaula Silwamba
Sunday, April 19, 2009 4:26:14 AM

OPPOSITION Patriotic Front (PF) president Michael Sata has said members of parliament will get higher midterm gratuities because President Rupiah Banda greedily approved the bills to increase their salaries despite opposition from majority Zambians.

And Sata said Ndola Diocese Bishop Noel O’Regan’s decision to remove Fr Frank Bwalya as Radio Icengelo station manager was meant to protect the Roman Catholic Church and the radio station.

Commenting on calls by the Anti Voter Apathy Project (AVAP) that members of parliament should forgo or suspend their midterm gratuities this year in the light of President Banda’s calls that leaders should sacrifice some of their benefits and that a big portion of the Zambian budget goes to pay salaries for few individuals, Sata said had the head of state listened to Zambians, members of parliament would be getting lower midterm gratuities as opposed to what they would get now.

“Having signed for those parliamentary [constitutional office holders] bills and now come and say ‘don’t get your money’ it’s very tricky. When you say, ‘they should not get their gratuity’, I don’t know how you can do it; it’s not easy,” said Sata in an interview in Lusaka. “The President needed to listen when we said, ‘don’t sign!’ If he didn’t sign it would have been something else, even if they were to get gratuity they were going to get less than what they are supposed to get now. But because of his greediness, he signed. When he signed now to come and say, ‘don’t get the money’, it will be very difficult because at the moment everybody is affected even members of parliament are affected.”

And Sata, a Catholic, defended the church’s removal of Fr Bwalya as station manager of Radio Icengelo, arguing that Bishop O’Regan did not bow to the government and MMD’s pressure.

“The MMD government was doing that deliberately. And the Bishop’s reaction was to protect the institution and the church. His reaction was not a question of giving in to government; it was to protect the church and Radio Icengelo,” Sata said. “I remember myself, when I formed PF, I was hosted at Radio Icengelo when MMD cadres came to attack me and they beat me and they created a lot of damage to the radio station. So that is still on the mind of the church.”

He said based on that incident, Bishop O’Regan was being cautious.

“The point is, whilst we sympathise with Fr Bwalya, at the same time we should sympathise with the church and the radio station because it has once been attacked,” Sata said. “It was me who was there when equipment was destroyed at Radio Icengelo.”

Fr Bwalya announced on Monday that Bishop O’Regan had informed him about his removal from Radio Icengelo.

However, Bishop O’Regan’s decision has created differences in opinion within the Catholic Church in the Copperbelt Province and staff at Radio Icengelo on Tuesday suspended operations in protest against the clergy man’s removal.

Fr Bwalya has been an ardent critic of President Banda, his administration and the governing MMD.

Last week, the MMD in Ndola threatened bloodshed if Fr Bwalya went ahead with his planned press conference, which the clergy later cancelled after the police denied him a permit and protection.

In November last year, Fr Bwalya was arrested and detained overnight for suggesting that the October 2008 presidential election that ushered President Banda into office was not free and fair.

Fr Bwalya was later released and charges dropped in unexplained circumstances.

Fr Bwalya’s arrest sparked violent protests in Kitwe.