LUNGU, FUND CONVENTION
…it’s your responsibility with Lubinda – Kaunda
By Bright Tembo
RECENTLY appointed Lusaka Province PF youth chairman Kelvin Kaunda who has since stepped down from the position says Edgar Lungu should fund the party convention.
In an interview, Kaunda said the party is broke but leaders should not ask candidates to contribute K1 million each.
“I talked about sponsoring the congress in January but I now don’t have the budget for June and the leadership had planned for it and they have settled for it. It’s amazing that I saw some statements that they were asking some presidential candidates to contribute one million each to the party. But that’s not to be,” he told The Mast. “The leadership of the party which is the leadership of former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu is the one responsible to mobilise not to shift the responsibility to any of the candidates. They must rise to the occasion and ensure that all is in place.”
Kaunda said the responsibility to sponsor the congress is on Lungu and acting president Given Lubinda.
“This is not the candidates’ responsibility. They do not own the party and it’s like you (a journalist) looking for a job and the CEO of the company does not have money and asks you to come with the money. Does that ever happen?” he asked. “The duty is that once you assume the office the responsibility is on you. It’s like before you marry the woman, the responsibility is not yours. But when you marry that is yours as a gentleman who has married that woman. The responsibility lies with president Edgar Lungu and the acting president Given Lubinda to organise the congress until the next leader takes up the responsibility. They should not put the burden on those that are aspiring.”
Kaunda challenged Lungu to rise to the occasion and mobilise resources for the PF congress.
“He must rise to the occasion because he is the party president and must ensure that the resources are organised and well utilised and have leaders in the party. For now, it remains their responsibility.
Unfortunately, it appears that there is no congress because that’s what we have been told that the party has no money,” he added. “But my appeal to the youths across the country is to rise up and be able to demand for the right thing to be done. And the right thing to be done is that we have to go to the congress. If not, the party will start going into oblivion. As we have seen now the movement of the majority of party structures across the country and this shows that our people are no longer interested with what is happening within the party.”
And Kaunda said he has no favourite presidential candidate at the convention.
“All of them are party members and because all of them are party members we will not take up the position of who we will support because they are all our leaders. We will leave it to the entire party organs and we will choose the best,” said Kaunda. “We don’t want to realign ourselves with anyone because all of them are our members. And I have different relationships with different people and ours is to champion the congress and who wins, it’s not for us to determine.”