Maravi

Political atmosphere is confusing - Bishop Lungu

Political atmosphere is confusing - Bishop Lungu
By Christopher Miti in Chipata
Thu 07 Jan. 2010, 04:00 CAT

ZAMBIA Episcopal Conference president Bishop George Lungu last Monday said the political atmosphere in the country is confusing.

And Bishop Lungu said the government had been a letdown to the farming community.
In an interview, Bishop Lungu said previously ZEC had raised a lot of issues in the Pastoral Letter but that there was no move towards finding solutions.

"In my opinion I feel the political situation, to say the least, is rather confusing. I say so because you know in the past, we in ZEC have mentioned a number of issues that are of great concern to us as a church and also the community in Zambia but apparently we don't seem to see movement towards either finding solutions or at least showing signs that something is happening in those areas,” Bishop Lungu said.

“You remember not long ago we had produced a pastoral statement that touched on issues of regionalism. We tried to kind of evaluate the outcome of the election and we saw very clearly that we voted according to regions, which again translates in others ways to tribalism, voting into office for somebody who comes from your area. It was an issue of concern but again we didn't see any effort to address that concern.

"And of late again we have been reading in the newspapers about tribalism, appointing people coming from the east because the President is from Eastern Province and so on. Then if that is true in the sense that all those posts people do not deserve those posts because they are just from Eastern Province, then we have also encountered a problem we are still dealing with an issue that hasn't been addressed. So I find that really something needs to be done about our situation,"

Bishop Lungu said it was bad that there were a lot of intra-party fights in Zambia.
And asked to comment on the government's sharp reaction towards criticism, Bishop Lungu said criticism was a health exercise.

"We often talk about constructive criticism so that people who receive the message do not get a negative picture of what you are trying to do. I should be able to know that you are criticising because you would like to see change, positive change for that matter," Bishop Lungu said.

He said it was unfortunate that some beneficiaries of the fertilizer support programme were still complaining about the manner in which it was handled.

"The marketing issue, people still know that the last marketing season was quite chaotic and many of them have expressed their anger in the manner in which it was handled and a number of things that happened during that marketing exercise," Bishop Lungu said.

He also expressed concern over the government's delay in completing the much talked about Chipata/Mchinji railway project. And featuring on a special Face the Media programme on Monday, Bishop Lungu charged that farmers have been let down by the government.

"I don't know what the government promised the people but you are the people who are going to judge the government. Have they managed to implement what they have promised to us?" Bishop Lungu said.

He urged the government to be careful in the manner it was treating farmers in Eastern Province if it were to get a vote from the area.

Labels: GEORGE LUNGU, ZEC

posted by MrK @ 4:18 AM