UPND SHOULD NOT CHANGE THE MINISTER OF INFORMATION- HER PERCEIVED INCOMPETENCE IS BECAUSE SHE IS BEING UNDERMINED BY THE PARTY – SABOI
As one of the few women leaders in the country, it has come with great shock to learn that there are people undermining the Minister of Information in the hope that they take over her office.
The Minister of Information never held a similar role in the UPND before and so she has had to learn from the job. And like all things that we do for the first time, her first days were not easy, but we have all witnessed her great transformation. And as a woman, I am very proud to see how she now handles her office and I am certainly hopeful that it will only get better.
The UPND has not mentored or positioned their women in influential positions and they went further to scrap off the Ministry of Gender just when they got in office.
We have Women’s Day next month on the 8th of March and for the first time we shall be celebrating it without a minister. Influential positions like that of the Minister of Health and Minister of Information, where we have women, have at least given us a bit of hope in the country that maybe by the time we reach 2026, UPND would have found more women to appoint in other influential positions.
However, instead of increasing the number of women, our reliable sources have told us that the Minister of Information is being highly undermined and some men are already positioning themselves to take over. Among these men that are planning to take over are some of those that are plotting her downfall.
We shall not take kindly to the UPND changing a woman for a man in such positions. If these conniving individuals damage her irreversibly internally, let them find a woman to replace her with and not these power hungry men that we are hearing of.
The lack of confidence and mistakes that we witnessed from the Minister of Information at the beginning are no longer there. But that lack of confidence also signified the lack of confidence that the UPND has in its women. Prior to forming government, we had never heard of any woman being a Spokesperson of anything in the UPND. So where did they expect to get overly confident women, with the necessary experience, who could have hit the ground running, if they never provided that training ground for them while in opposition?
We are also very aware of the power struggle at the Ministry of Information and how junior officials are victimising higher ranking officials all because they have a direct connection to the powers that be. We would like to warn the UPND government that their failure to protect women in their party is a sign that they cannot protect any woman out there and so we shall not take it lightly as women if they let their men undermine the very few women that have even been appointed in their party.
Issued by;
Saboi Imboela
President- NDC