Maravi

Kabimba demands discipline in PF
By Moses Kuwema in Mumbwa
Mon 07 Oct. 2013, 14:01 CAT

WYNTER Kabimba says all the bad elements in the PF will be flushed out. And Kabimba says he is not resigning. Meanwhile, Kabimba says the survival of the PF beyond this year and even 2016, will depend on the lessons that the party will learn from political parties that have been in power before, such as UNIP and MMD.

Addressing PF officials and members at the council chambers in Mumbwa on Saturday, Kabimba urged the party members in the area to watch out for detractors, whom he said wanted to destroy the party.

"Our people deserve respect from us as a governing party. Let them be harassed by the opposition, not us.They did not vote for us that we must allow hooligans to be carrying machetes against them. Two weeks ago, they broke Investrust Bank, a local bank owned by a Zambian. They are hired to come and dent the image of this party. All of us must stand up to these illegal hooligans and because they are paid, their paymasters will get tired or they will go broke," he said.

Kabimba said genuine PF members must guard the party jealously against hooligans, whom he said were coming into the party wearing PF chitenge or shirts and claiming to be more PF than those that had been there before. He said those hooligans were recruited from UNIP and MMD.
Kabimba said the PF must continue to grow, to be united and to be strengthened.

"These are the values that we have cultivated in this party. This party must continue having members that are disciplined, members that are committed to the party and because of that, the strength of the party, unity, commitment, will depend on the quality of the leaders. The party can only be as good as its leaders," he said.

Kabimba said as secretary general of the PF, he was proud that the unity and discipline that he had been preaching about had taken root in the last two weeks. Kabimba said genuine PF members were not commodities who could be bought. He said the culture of impunity had been confined to Lusaka.

"I cannot be good secretary general for the hooligans. They will not even be there in 2016. Don't worry about the coffins that they carry. I am not inside there. People were crying 'Oh! no they are carrying coffins around town'; I was not inside. I am not resigning. This is my party. I cannot cook nshima and let others eat. Watch out against these detractors. They have come to destroy our party and after they have done so, they will move on," he said.

He cautioned PF members to be on the lookout for people that were going round the country, purporting to be taking messages in the name of the President.

And Kabimba said when the PF came into power, it made a public pronouncement that what was happening in the MMD, where the party was dipping its fingers in the national treasury, was wrong and that it should not repeat itself under the PF government.

He said the action was tantamount to the party stealing money from the government, which was the same as stealing money from the people of Zambia.

"UNIP today is dead and dead completely and I doubt if it is ever going to come back. MMD today, it does not matter what they do, it is dead and gone. One of the major mistakes that UNIP made was to cultivate in its membership, the culture of impunity. UNIP members used to say it pays to belong to UNIP.

MMD came, we thought that they would kill that culture of impunity; they continued with it," he said.

Kabimba said the culture of impunity entailed that members of a ruling party could go out and harass citizens under the guise and name of their party.

"They think that they can go round demarcating people's plots and selling without being brought to account because they belong to the PF. That is what the culture of impunity means. The Zambian people decided to kick out the political parties that were in power in order to defend themselves from this culture of impunity," he said.

Kabimba said the PF could not be an exception to the rule of being voted out if it continued with the culture of impunity.
He said there was nothing special about the PF.

"If we are going to cultivate the same culture of impunity, of harassing citizens, demarcating plots, making our people cry and even regretting that they voted for PF in 2011, we shall go the same way unless those of us that are in the leadership of the party can begin to condemn these activities publicly," he said.

Meanwhile, Kabimba, who was in the company of Lusaka district chairman Goodson Banda and Lusaka Province youth chairman Kennedy Kamba, said there were no arbitrary decisions that were made in the PF because people are either appointed or elected.

Kabimba commended the district leadership in Mumbwa for coming up with the initiative of fundraising, saying this was how certain districts in the country managed to buy themselves motor vehicles.

Meanwhile, Kabimba says the Church should play a leading role in praying for people in leadership positions because their task ahead was challenging.

During thanksgiving worship for members of parliament from the United Church of Zambia (UCZ), Kabimba, who spoke on behalf of other members of parliament from both the ruling and opposition political parties, said the leaders meant well in their service to the country.

"This is the first time that we are meeting as members of parliament from across different political parties. If it was not in church, my colleagues from the opposition would have walked away, so you can see the influence of the Church on members of parliament," he said.

Kabimba said it was not an election or a nomination that made people good leaders but that that was just the beginning.
He said a lot of the challenges that the world was faced with had been caused by poor leadership.

"We need the guidance of the Church on how to lead others. Those of us in leadership positions are not special and it is inhuman to think like that," he said.

And UCZ Synod Bishop Reverend Mutale Mulumbwa called on leaders to be role models in the way they conduct themselves.

Giving his addess at St Matthew's congregation yesterday, Rev Mulumbwa said the Church had a duty to encourage and pray for leaders.

"You have a partner to work with in the name of UCZ. We have very important programmes to work with for the people of Zambia. We should find some common ground to serve our people, and one of them is the area of infrastructure development such as schools and hospitals," said Rev Mulumbwa.

Labels: PF, WYNTER KABIMBA

posted by MrK @ 6:42 PM