By Ulande Nkomesha,
GOVERNMENT Chief Whip Stafford Mulusa has accused some PF members of parliament of going to Parliament drunk and trying to disturb Parliamentary proceedings.
On Tuesday, PF members of parliament walked out of Parliament twice, the first time being when Second Deputy Speaker Moses Moyo allowed a debate on State House to proceed despite an objection from the leader of opposition Brian Mundunbile.
The second walk out protest was when Kawambwa PF member of parliament Nickson Chilangwa was sent out of the House after Moyo rejected his request to raise a point of order, which Chilangwa did not take lightly.
Commenting on the walk-out protests in an interview, Wednesday, Mulusa who is also Solwezi Central UPND member of parliament said PF MPs were “hyper” and were trying to make it difficult for Parliament to run.
“Whatever happened yesterday (Tuesday), I think it was a misunderstanding. That was a thing that could have just ended up being solved by the end of the debate. I think we settled it in the offices and the House returned to normal. One thing that is obvious, you know our friends are hyper, they just lost power and everything they want to do, I think they are trying to make it difficult for the House to run.
But that will not help them because the House has procedures and rules to govern it. I think yesterday you saw the point of order coming, we were questioning their act whether it is parliamentary to behave like that where you show that you want to disrupt the business of the House. So there is a point of order, we hope that we shall hear the verdict very soon,” he said.
“For some of those people like my brother honourable [Nickson] Chilangwa, I think most of them are coming drunk, we have a bar there, so the behaviour is not just normal behaviour, they are coming prepared to just say ‘let us go and do this’. But we are handling them and we hope that they will change along the way so that they get used to the opposition.”
He said the walkout protests by UPND while in opposition were on merit compared to the PF.
“You see, there used to be walkouts on merits when we were discussing the issues of Bill 10 and all that, because we were moving with people. What we are doing is to give a good service to the people, there is nothing else that we are doing as a new dawn government. So in Parliament we have noted that PF are coming with all the tricks, they are coming with all the questions of urgent matter and all that. You see when we just open Parliament we are spending more than 30 minutes just on points of orders, questions for urgency and all that,” said Mulusa.
“So we are watching them, we are steadily analysing their acts and we hope that they will realise that Zambians need all of us to work together to make sure that development comes to every part of this country. So the behaviour yesterday was very unfortunate, it was unnecessary and I hope that it does not come back to the House in that manner. I hope that we shall look into it through the point of order that was raised and see where we shall end as a House and leaders of the House.”