Our Rights as PF are infringed by Kambwili, says Kampyongo
By Staff Reporter
PF national youth chairperson Steven Kampyongo mesmerised Parliament yesterday when he said the rights of the ruling party were being infringed upon by the fact that its member, Roan member of parliament Chishimba Kambwili, was offering free political consultancy to the National Democratic Congress.
And opposition UPND Choma member of parliament Cornelious Mweetwa said the human rights record under the PF government has been disastrous.
Speaking when he contributed to a debate on the estimates of revenue and expenditure to the Human Rights Commission (HRC), Kampyongo, who is home affairs minister, told Kambwili that “we regard you as ours.”
“My dear brother, Honourable member for Roan, I have repeatedly heard you speak on behalf of a new party and that their rights are being abused. We regard you as ours, Honourable CK (Chishimba Kambwili). I’m just responding to my elder brother Honourable CK who was talking about the rights of a new party, NDC and as a consultant. Mine is just to say that we also feel [that] our rights are being infringed as PF when we see our own…. How can our own member be giving free services to a party?” Kampyongo said.
“Our members have told me from Roan to say ‘please, minister we are feeling our rights are being infringed upon. Our own sponsored member of parliament who we dearly love, has opted to trample on us by leaving us, going to other parties.’ So, please respect the rights of those people that gave you a vote on PF so that when you decide to go, they can accept but for you to wear two jackets, people are concerned. You have got no consent from us; you don’t have consent to be going to NDC. You don’t offer consultancy like that!”
Earlier, Kampyongo told the House that the Ministry of Home Affairs did not have a “cat and mouse kind of relationship with the human rights commission.”
“We see them as serious stakeholders because whatever we are doing, in terms of the improvements that we have spoken about here, have been done as a result of the many reports this institution has generated. Therefore, we shall continue working closely with them because their work is very important and they help us in getting to do an introspection as a ministry,”
He also censured opposition members of parliament for calling for human rights, when, according to him, the referendum that sought to guarantee a progressive Bill of Rights in the Constitution was decampaigned by them last year.
Meanwhile, Kambwili, in his contribution to the same head, called on authorities to make correctional facilities around the country habitable.
“We should introduce things like community service other than custodial sentences to reduce congestions in prisons. Imagine in those prisons some of them (prisoners) have even got TB. So, you are exposing other people to tuberculosis in those prisons without caring. Then you want to say that it is costly to run the hospitals! You are causing it because we all know that tuberculosis is an airborne diseases…,” he complained.
“Even if people have committed offences, they still remain human beings and they deserve to be treated in a fair and humane manner other than treating them like wild animals. So, why should the Human Rights Commission continue writing reports on matters like that?”
On lawful dismissals, Kambwili, a former information minister, expressed discontentment with a particular recent case.
“Just last week, one of the ZNBC staffers Misheck Moyo was found with me at a Church and we met PF officials who were telling him ‘you’ll be fired’ and true to their word, [on] Monday the man received his suspension [letter] from ZNBC. What kind of behavior is that?
“I want the Human Rights Commission to rush to ZNBC-Kitwe and make sure that that gentleman is reinstated. I have always told you people in government [that] as you choose ministers, choose people who can work as ministers – don’t go and get kabovas (street mafias) to become ministers because these kabovas…. How can a minister call ZNBC to tell them ‘fire that one and ZNBC start mansombwe (shivering)? It doesn’t make sense.”
