Maravi

MMD under attack over government funds

MMD under attack over government funds
By Patson Chilemba
Thu 19 May 2011, 04:00 CAT

THE use of public resources in the MMD’s campaigns is daylight robbery for which Rupiah Banda as high priest of corruption will be probed, says George Mpombo. And Mpombo said Zambians should demand to stop paying ZNBC TV levy because it is clear that the institution is being used as a propaganda tool for the free-falling President Banda, who he said has been a "terrific disaster".

Commenting on the use of public resources by ministers who were recently on a three-week campaign programme to reorganise MMD party structures, Mpombo, who is Kafulafuta MMD member of parliament, said President Banda and his ministers would one day be made to account for the abuse of public resources.

“This is daylight robbery of scarce public resources, and the Auditor General should probe how public resources have been used to cater for MMD cadres staying in high profile lodges, while carrying out party activities. This is an unacceptable return to the one party state where party and government functions were fused,” he said.

Mpombo said the new government should speedily deal with the abuse of state resources which President Banda and his government were committing right before the people’s eyes.

He said when a minister went on a party mission, the funding should come from the party and not government.

“To use government resources for party activities is criminal and an obstacle to the development of transparency and accountability. For instance, we have information minister Ronnie Shikapwasha; he is was on the Copperbelt assessing the performance of sitting MPs and also looking at possible candidates,” Mpombo said.

“This is totally unacceptable because the money being paid on a daily basis for party work, his driver is being paid and we don’t know how he is going to handle his imprest.”

Mpombo said President Banda knew very well that he was presiding over the abuse of resources and that was the reason he found it hard to digest PF leader Michael Sata’s declaration that he would speedily pursue plunderers.

“He is aware the people of Zambia are in an uncompromising mood to see who has been swimming naked as far as corruption is concerned when the tide is over,” Mpombo said. “President Banda as high priest of corruption and intricate deals, complex deals must be worried that he will be asked to account for the massive wealth he has amassed in just two years.”

He said the new government should move speedily to reinstate the offence of abuse of office in the Anti Corruption Act which was removed by President Banda to legalise corruption in the country.

Mpombo said President Banda was taking the country backwards.

He said initially they lied that ministers had been sent to monitor government projects, but what the nation witnessed were campaign messages from the ministers asking people not to vote for Sata.

Mpombo wondered if insults from the likes of education minister Dora Siliya were also part of government programmes.

“What we saw was a stream of insults against Mr Sata. Is that part of her Ministry of Education or governance programmes? It is shameful that political lightweights, upstarts like Dora Siliya derive some sort of sensual thrill in insulting senior citizens like Mr Sata. You can’t pay a person all the way to go to Northern Province to go and insult Mr Sata,” he said.

Mpombo said it was reckless for Siliya to attack Catholics that they supported homosexuality.

He said the Church would not be intimidated for speaking out on the ills being committed under President Banda’s regime and added that Siliya should in fact weigh herself if she was the right person to lecture others on moral conduct.
Mpombo said President Banda was not interested in serving the people of Zambia.

“It is Gen Shikapwasha who admitted that he went through hell after being dismissed, so what he is doing now is not to help people of Zambia but to please the appointing authority. For him as long as he has bread on his table, it’s shalom, shalom,” Mpombo said.

He said President Banda was a very ungrateful man who had gone about obliterating the legacy of the man (the late president Levy Mwanawasa) who saved him from perpetual poverty.

“Banda must understand that God is great because when he was in Chipata, gumboots were his designer shoes, not Pierre Cardin. Or overralls were his Pierre Cardin,” Mpombo said.

Mpombo dispelled President Banda’s statement that he should take credit because he was the one who was finishing late Mwanawasa’s projects.
And Mpombo said the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of news had descended into shocking levels of unprofessionalism.

Mpombo said the news was now about President Banda and the MMD.

“Writers of ZNBC news should talk to their consciences whether their role is to engage in continuous political cannibalism because it is morally unacceptable for ZBNC to continue to demand for the TV levies, the K3,000s, in the face of their clearly partisan political stance and their desire to demonise people like Sata,” said Mpombo.

“They must understand what they are doing is just attracting the Egyptian revolution style. Zambians should demand that they be excused from paying these levies and instead let ZNBC ask MMD as a political party to fill the gap. They are propping up the free-falling career of Rupiah Banda who has been a terrific disaster.”

Labels: CORRUPTION, EGYPT, GEORGE MPOMBO, MMD

posted by MrK @ 1:43 PM