By Daily Revelation Reporter
Socialist Party (SP) member Paul Moonga has urged respect for President Hakainde Hichilema and that he would not hesitate to condemn his own party leader Dr Fred M’membe in the event he insulted the head of state.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Moonga said politics of “insults” must come to an end, and that people should not take advantage of the fact that the defamation of the president law has been repealed.
“Please!! Let them tone down their language. You can’t call the President useless, stupid, no matter what level. You can’t diminish the office of President. It’s not about HH. Let’s respect our own institutions of office of President because tomorrow it may be you, it may be me,” Moonga said. “I want to appeal through your press, I am appealing to Zambians to tone down their language. Don’t call the President ‘you are useless, you are stupid.’ That language is not Zambian.”
Asked what he would do if his own party leader Dr M’membe ever ‘insulted’ President Hichilema, Moonga said: “I would condemn him. Yes! I would condemn him. We have to engage each other in a civilized manner.”
He said “those that were insulting the President” should be mindful that he also has a family, saying if people in his hay day could kneel before their own teacher as he approached school on his bike, what more the President.
Asked on the incessant criticism the President is receiving on several issues including one where he boasted that he had managed to end load shedding in the country only to see the same effected a few days after making that boast, Moonga described the President as a human being who was not only running Zesco but the whole country and that Zesco board chairman Ncube even took the blame.
“And people want somebody to be fired. I don’t think this thing of firing people for what? About load shedding? It’s foolish thinking that somebody must be fired because of this. We need to move forward on how best we can help each other,” Moonga said. “Yes, we want to come to power as Socialist Party, but are we going to come to power blaming people here and there? We should be able to provide solutions. Like I said don’t load shed people in the morning?”
Asked if he would welcome an invitation to work with President Hichilema in the UPND, Moonga said he was in the opposition and did not want to become a bootlicker of the President, claiming that he refused a High Commissioner appointment to Canada from late president Levy Mwanawasa, and also refused a permanent secretary offer from former president Edgar Lungu, saying he would welcome an offer to exchange ideas from the President but not an appointment.
Moonga said things were not going well in the country with high fuel prices, increased mealie meal prices, load shedding and several crisis Zambians were enduring, arguing that if an election were held today, the competition would be between SP and PF, saying his former party was still very strong on the ground and all they were lacking was a leader.
“Once they have a leader now we shall say okay, can this one speak to our ba M’membe,” Moonga said. “People are looking forward. M’membe is a good leader, is there anybody who can match him or better than M’membe? Can the PF get somebody better than M’membe? That’s the question. It’s not about a party.”
Moonga said he was extremely confident over the SP’s growth prospects as the politics they were engaged in were not politics of insults. He said he was happy that PF presidential aspirant in his former party, Brian Mundubile, apologized for the caderism as that is how a human being is supposed to behave.
He said he was in charge of Lusaka Province under PF and he never entertained insults from “all those boys”, and did not mind if somebody insulted him.
But Moonga once attacked late Paul Ngozi’s daughter after her title track “Mwaziona ALungu”, saying she did so because of “prolonged menstrual periods” and Moonga also at one point threatened to unleash his cadres on the millers for increasing mealie meal prices during the PF reign. In response, Moonga said it was because at that time the millers were getting the maize at an affordable price and were exploiting the citizens, and they could not be allowed to do so.
But this time around, Moonga said the rains came late and no one could be blamed for nature but the key was about managing what the country was producing.
“Also I don’t mind about load shedding myself. But the issue is when should you load shed? If we have a calamity we have a situation it has happened it has happened. We should not behave like Adam, blame game. Stop this blame game and come up with solutions,” he said.
However, Moonga wondered why the UPND administration was removing vendors from the streets now when they could have done so before the rains started.
“I don’t like vendors. They make the city dirty. It is a good thing to do (to remove them), but the approach,” said Moonga.
