Why should there be so much animosity, WE ARE THE SAME PLAYERS…let’s face it, Kampyongo reminds UPND ministers

Why should there be so much animosity,

WE ARE THE SAME PLAYERS

…let’s face it, Kampyongo reminds UPND ministers





By Kholiwe Miti



THE Financial Intelligence Centre was a creation of the government that I belonged to, says

Shiwang’andu PF member of parliament Stephen Kampyongo.

He wonders why the animosity, “when we are the same players. If we the players are the ones who are taking dirty to the politics, let’s start cleaning that dirty ourselves because at the end of the day we have a common heritage, the Republic of Zambia”.

He says the PF government was fully aware of the roles of FIC when they operationalised it.

“The operationalisation order was made in 2012… Mr Speaker, the comments on governance issues, I would just like to make a few clarifications. The Financial Intelligence Centre, Mr Speaker [second deputy speaker Moses Moyo], was a creation of the government that I belonged to and it’s like a parent giving birth to a child you wouldn’t love. I don’t think that would be logical. So, this was born during our time and it was operationalised during our time. And by accepting to operationalise it we were fully aware of its role in ensuring that our economic situation in Zambia is not destabilised by those who intentionally would want to engage in [illicit] financial flows,” Kampyongo said during the adoption of the Zambian delegation’s report at the 67th

Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference on Friday. “And I am elated to hear the minister though he was a bit misleading on the people that were sent out of there… I was talking about one lady [then FIC director general Mary Chirwa] who was sent out of that institution until she had her own social issues but no one was fired on the account of a report at any given time. And that I can attest because I was closely working with this institution due to my role as minister of home affairs.”

The UPND moved Chirwa from FIC to Drug Enforcement Commission in the same capacity before deploying her as envoy to Mozambique.

Kampyongo said it is high time parliamentarians stopped condemning each other but learn to start “bridging the gaps” as they are the same people.

“Mr Speaker, democracy that we talking about, I think we as players in the democratic space must also start questioning ourselves because we may change, we are talking about landscapes. We have had UNIP, MMD, Patriotic Front and now UPND. But if you look critically you will find that the players are more or less the same – let’s say 60 per cent,” Kampyongo said. “If I look across there, I see distinguished members of parliament who were part of the executive of the Movement for

Multiparty Democracy. They are in this executive today. There are some people who were also members of the executive under the Patriotic Front who are in this current executive serving. So, these are factors that we should start interrogating. Why then should there be so much animosity even

[in] continuity of programmes of government because we are the same players, let’s face it? We are the same players. So even when we condemn each other, we must speak to our minds and say what is it that I’m condemning. Even the legacies that we are passing to each other we must be speaking to that context that ‘yes, I was part of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy, there are things that were done very well and things that couldn’t have been done well. Yes, I was part of the Patriotic

Front, so much achievements and there could have been some shortcomings’. How then do we start bridging the gap because it won’t end here. Like I’m saying members who were part of the MMD are still there in the front bench [and] some members of the Patriotic Front.”

He stressed that “even as we are talking about this landscape, we must not remove ourselves as players because the way we conduct ourselves is what has ended in the name of politics being a dirty game”.

“If we the players are the ones who are taking dirty to the politics, let’s start cleaning that dirty ourselves because at the end of the day we have a common heritage, the Republic of Zambia. And so, we should start learning to appreciate each other, our strengths and weakness, that’s the only way we can build this country going forward, Mr Speaker,” Kampyongo said.

He added that members of parliament need to have robust security to avoid cases of being abducted.

“Mr Speaker, I would just like to go to the issue of the abuse of the parliamentarians and there is a recommendation on page five…’the end of the session, participants endorse of the recommendation that parliamentarians of the Commonwealth should be committed to providing robust security measures for members and their staff adaptable to change and political landscapes and supplemented by adequate and accessible medical and physical mental health and legal support’. We have been lamenting even here Mr Speaker about how we secure our members of parliament. And I think if we had robust security provided for our members of parliament, we wouldn’t have a member disappearing, a member suspected to be abducted, a member being abused by the members of the public. These should have been avoided where members are provided with robust security,” said Kampyongo. “Not too long ago Mr Speaker, I was shocked to hear a member of parliament and not just an ordinary member of parliament but a cabinet minister being verbally abused by an individual and issuing threats on a member of cabinet on a matter which was administrative. And I could imagine the member was coming here tired, the minister was coming into this august House tired, and was being called by this citizen who was telling them ‘no you, you have changed the controlling authority from this person to another person. We are going to teach you a lesson.’ How do we allow that kind of abuse for senior members of cabinet? This requires attention. If it was bad before it should be bad even now because if we are not controlling these things colleagues, they have got a tendency of escalating.”