Maravi

Only bad eggs in MMD should apologise - Kavindele

COMMENT - Enoch Kavindele is one of the bad eggs in the MMD. He started to sing the praises of the MMD after they promised him support for his contract.

Only bad eggs in MMD should apologise - Kavindele
By Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Fri 02 Mar. 2012, 10:59 CAT

ONLY the bad eggs of MMD should apologise for stealing from Zambians when they served in government and for tarnishing the party's image, says former vice-president Enoch Kavindele.

And Kavindele says corruption has been responsible for cutting short some of the most promising and brilliant public and political careers the country has ever seen. Kavindele said it was wrong for former MMD national secretary Dr Katele Kalumba to issue a "blanket statement" that the entire fallen party was engulfed in unbridled corruption.

Dr Kalumba said Zambians were upset about corruption and other wrongdoings of the MMD, resulting in the fall of the once glamorous ruling party.

But Kavindele said members with cases before the courts for corruption should not drag MMD into their personal problems with the law.

"Those that are being probed are being investigated in their individual capacities; the MMD as a party, we are not facing any corruption charges," Kavindele said in an interview.

"We should expect that those that were corrupt, in their individual capacities, they should apologise and own up, and they will be saving everybody's time, including the court's time."

Kavindele advised all corrupt elements of the former ruling party to own up, return the plundered national resources, and subsequently apologise to the country.

"Those corruption cases are personal problems and you cannot invite the whole party to share personal problems for the party did not benefit from those individual initiatives," Kavindele said. "So, they should own up. And it's not in the interest of everybody so that the corrupt elements go and plead guilty so that the party is detached and cleansed from corrupt activities of individuals."

And Kavindele said corruption was depriving the country of good and future leaders.

He regretted that corruption cases had aborted the promising political life of Dr Kalumba.

Kalumba was last year convicted for corruption over Zamtrop-related offences. His appeal against his conviction is still pending in the Lusaka High Court.
"It is wrong to ask MMD leadership to apologize when these efforts where by individuals," said Kavindele.

"In the MMD, Dr Katele is very much liked by all our members, he is an affable and approachable man, but these things he got into problems with, those were individual initiatives. He didn't do those things as MMD national secretary. We miss him in the leadership because he was very accommodating. It's not the party that has let the people down due to corruption, it's the individuals. The MMD is still a very popular and respected party by the people of Zambia."

Labels: CORRUPTION, ENOCH KAVINDELE, MMD

posted by MrK @ 5:14 PM