Thursday, 3 June 2010

Honour among thieves

More than a week after being convicted by the courts, Katele Kalumba is still National Secretary of the rulling MMD. Yesterday we had Mike Mulogoti pleading for people to feel sorry for Katele and this morning Michael Mabenga is saying the National Executive Committee of the MMD will soon meet to decided whether the disgraced MP should step down from his position or not.

THE National Executive Committee (NEC) of the MMD will determine whether national secretary Katele Kalumba should resign from his position or not, party national chairperson Michael Mabenga has said. Speaking in an interview in Lusaka yesterday, Mr Mabenga said the issue of whether Dr Kalumba should resign from his position or not would only be determined by NEC and advised outsiders to desist from commenting on the matter that was purely internal.
“This is a NEC matter and I don’t know how many times I am going to talk about it. The NEC will soon meet and it will be discussed, it’s only NEC that can determine such a matter,” Mr Mabenga said.

I sense that the MMD do not realise how angry people are with the plunderers. As a party they seem to take a very sympathetic view of thieves. The current Chairman (Michael Mabenga) was recommended for prosecution after the high court found that he had abused Constituency Development Funds (CDFs) and yet the MMD found him to be the best person to be Chairman. And now the most senior officer of the party is a convicted criminal and the MMD needs to hold a meeting to determine his fate. Surely Katele should resign on his accord failure to which strong messages should be sent to him in private or public to make it very clear that the MMD do not want him to continue holding the position of National Secretary. He should also be encouraged to resign his seat as MP so that the people for Chiengi are given a chance to vote for an MP not tainted by scandal.


The PANEL

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