By Staff Reporter
I don’t want to escalate things, says Infrastructure Minister Charles Milupi.
Reacting to the back and forth arguments involving Southern Province Minister who is also UPND spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa and UPND alliance spokesperson Daniel Shimunza, Milupi, who is UPND alliance chairperson, said he did not want to escalate things when contacted to comment as alliance chairperson.
Daily Revelation had called to get Milupi’s position on the statement by Shimunza as both alliance chairperson and one of the presidents in the alliance on the statement by Shimunza, where the alliance leaders castigated Mweetwa.
“No! No! Speak to him (Shimunza). Speak to the one who has issued the statement,” Milupi said.
But put to him that Shimunza had already been spoken and that Mweetwa too had already given his reaction to that statement, Milupi said: “Don’t spread things, talk to him. Now if you bring it to me you are escalating. In life you don’t want to escalate things. So if you have spoken to them they have given you their side. If (presidential spokesperson) Anthony Bwalya gives a statement on State House do you say no, no, no, let’s go to the President? Do you do that? So I think if you have talked to those they have given you their side, I think we allow things to die.”
Shimunza yesterday issued a statement on behalf of the alliance presidents, where they stated that they were greatly dismayed, alarmed, and shocked by the; unsolicited, unmeasured, unfortunate, irresponsible, overzealous, false, naive, insensitive, and immature statements, attributed to one Mweetwa, against the Alliance Partners, on Friday, 24th June, 2022, at the UPND secretariat in a Press Briefing.
“It is such irresponsible and immature statements, which made some of our Alliance Partners ,to be apprehensive, because of the inadvertently insidious; deception, propaganda, and betrayal of the sacred trust, reposed in this Alliance,” stated Shimunza in part.
But Mweetwa sarcastically started his response by saying that “I can’t respond to him, he has said I am not at his level. So I can’t respond to someone who I am not at his level. He’s too higher up. He’s a president of a political party. Me I am just a spokesperson of the UPND and so I can’t begin to exchange personal discussions as such.”
“The only thing is I would advise him to listen through my entire conversation I had, there is nowhere were I demeaned any political party. And people should desist from reacting to hearsay. People should react to what they have heard with primary evidence,” he argued.
Mweetwa argued that there was nowhere where he demeaned anyone and that was not even part of his initial submission as it only came up when someone asked a question on the same that one of the alliance presidents Nason Msoni had suggested that all the presidents should have been in cabinet.
“And I said it will be asking too much to expect that a cabinet of about 20something people then you have 12 alliance presidents. I think that would be demanding too much,” he said.
Mweetwa also said he made mention that there was no written agreement that every alliance president would have a ministerial appointment.
