Mabenga backtracks on Namakando issue

Mabenga backtracks on Namakando issue
By Mwala Kalaluka
Tue 12 Jan. 2010, 04:01 CAT

MMD national chairman Michael Mabenga has backtracked on his recent insistence that the party’s national executive committee (NEC) should have a final say over the reconciliation between President Rupiah Banda and Simasiku Namakando following the latter’s reinstatement.

But Lukulu MMD youth chairman Mutoshi Chinyama has said Namakando’s reinstatement as the party’s provincial chairman will not help the MMD win the 2011 elections in the area if President Banda does not fulfill his development pledges in the province by April this year.

Mabenga, who was accused of having opposed the reconciliation between President Banda and Namakando’s dissolved but recently reinstated executive, said in an interview that the intra-party stand-off was now a closed matter.

Mabenga said the Western Province executive issues would therefore not be tabled during the next planned MMD NEC meeting following the party secretariat’s decision to reinstate Namakando and his colleagues.

“That was done and it is done and we are waiting to move forward,” Mabenga said. “They can come back to do the work that was part of the reconciliation that was done between those four people and the President.”

When asked if he had abandoned his earlier stance that the NEC should have a say over the reconciliation between President Banda and Namakando’s group, Mabenga said: “It is closed now. Once that is done it means the matter is closed and will not come to NEC this time.”

But Chinyama said much as the ruling party’s rank and file in the province was appreciative to President Banda for reinstating Namakando as the provincial chairman, extensive damage had already been inflicted on the MMD in view of the intra-party differences.

Chinyama said in an interview from Lukulu that a lot of people had lost confidence in the MMD because of what they did to Namakando and that it would take a lot of effort to reverse the party’s political fortunes in the province.

“We are asking President Rupiah Banda to fulfill the development promises he made to the people here so that even when we start campaigning for the 2011 elections we can have something to show to the people,” Chinyama said. “If President Banda does not do this by April this year, they will make it extremely difficult for us to win the elections because people were fed up with us.”

Meanwhile, Mabenga has described former Mongu Central parliamentarian Francis Simenda of being a sick person following the latter’s assertions that Mabenga had failed to take development to his constituency.

“Mr Simenda seems to be sick and his sickness is affecting his memory and eyesight,” Mabenga said.

Mabenga outlined a number of projects that he was undertaking in Mulobezi Constituency through Constituency Development Fund (CDF).

“I want to put the record straight so that he can check his memory,” he said. “He also said that is why Mwanawasa was not giving me any ministerial position. I am surprised and that is why I am saying his sickness is making him lose his memory.”

Mabenga said when late president Mwanawasa came into State House in 2002 he was local government minister under the Frederick Chiluba regime.

“When he made his first cabinet about a year and half, I was moved to the Ministry of Defence…I do not know whether that was not an elevation or a promotion,” Mabenga wondered. “I do not know what he meant when he says I have got poor managerial abilities. He must tell me himself which ministry he has headed in this country.”

Mabenga said he did his best in all the ministerial positions he was appointed to in the past and that he was sure a lot of Zambians cherished the contribution.