NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili says it is an insult to be told that he has plans of going back to PF.

And Kambwili says NDC member of parliament Joseph Chishala misbehaved and went against party orders on Constitution (Amendment) Bill No.10 of 2019.

Featuring on Prime Television’s Oxygen of Democracy programme Monday evening, Kambwili insisted that it was practically impossible for him to rejoin the ruling party.

“That’s an insult…kuntuka uko mwaice wandi. I know for how long I am going, this question of me rejoining PF from the media, I have not called anybody to plead to go back to PF and I have no intention whatsoever of going back to PF,” he said.

Kambwili said he left government in 2016 but had not lost weight as he was still the same man.

“They can squeeze me as much as they want but I believe in God, the heavenly Father, I will survive just like I have since 2016,” he said. “I have been squeezed from 2016, if it were some people, cowards by now they would have gone to kneel before PF ati napapata nalafwa kunsala (Please I will die of hunger) but not Imbwili. Imbwili is something else.”

The NDC leader said because of rampant corruption, incompetence and failing to differentiate development from undertaking projects for purposes of collecting commissions, it was impossible for him to look back and rejoin the ruling PF.

He said under the current administration of President Edgar Lungu, it was a waste of time to persuade him to rejoin the PF.

“Look, I do not want to be like other people who say when I was in the opposition I was just politicking about what I said about PF,” Kambwili said, in reference to Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba.

He reiterated that he has never differed with PF as a party but the way its current leadership was administering the economy.

Kambwili said people from the ruling party who insulted him were those who joined at harvest time, like Lusaka Province minister Bowman Lusambo.

“For now I am asking them (PF members) to join hands with NDC and Chishimba Kambwili to get out of the current quagmire and not the other way round,” he said.

And Kambwili clarified Chishala’s defiance over Bill 10 had neither his blessing nor the party’s.

“Let me clear the air surrounding this issue, I have heard so many attacks particularly on me as an individual and the NDC as a party that we allowed our MP to go and behave the way he behaved in Parliament,” Kambwili said. “Against our party position, against what we had told him, he misbehaved. But people started saying that Kambwili, we know could have reacted very furiously and expelled the MP for what he did but this is where you differentiate the leadership that I have and my ability to analyse issues and do the right things.”

He said members of parliament could not be punished for voting in a particular manner because they enjoyed parliamentary immunity.

Kambwili said political parties could, therefore, not interfere with the way an MP voted in the House but could only direct.

“The MP went ahead and misbehaved and did his own thing, but Kambwili will not rush to expel him, knowing that is contempt against the House. I already have seven cases in court so I don’t want to play in the hands of PF by committing such an offence,” said Kambwili. “Ukucenjela kwa nkoko, pungwa tasakamana. Mailo akesa pangafye akamulandu akanono, kale kale twalopola pafita nokufita (a hawk is never bothered about a chicken’s antics. Tomorrow he will just commit a simple offence, we shall quickly clamp him and it will be dark for him). You must be tactical. Even the UPND have not disciplined their MPs because they know that its contemptuous to the House. The party now needs to bring the young man…Chishala is big enough to reason that ifyo acitile naba (what he did with) PF which we did not allow is not correct.”

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