Lessons from congregants denial of Kwacha MP

By Daily Revelation Editor

There was drama at Kwacha East UCZ Congregation in Kitwe yesterday when congregants denied knowing their area member of parliament Charles Mulenga in the presence of President Hakainde Hichilema.

Yesterday when the President and other government and UPND party officials attended the service, Copperbelt Province minister Elisha Matambo stood to introduce the entourage at the congregation.

But Matambo called Mulenga to greet the people of his constituency they denied knowing him.

“Aba eba MP benu ba Mulenga (This is your MP Mulenga) tamwabeshiba (don’t know him)?” he said.

But the congregants responded that they did not know him.

“Awee! Awee! Awee! (No! No! No!),” they responded in unison.

There are several narratives that can be drawn from yesterday’s Kwacha East UCZ incident.

It’s possible to follow the reaction from the people that indeed Mulenga is not known by the people of his constituency, which is usually the case with most members of parliament, or politicians, once they have been elected into office. Most of them disappear from their constituencies to enjoy the luxuries of the offices they have been elected to, and only get back to their constituencies when it’s expedient for them to do so, such as when time comes to seek another mandate to continue in office from the people.

The second scenario is that it’s possible that the member of parliament cannot be known everywhere, including in their own constituency. Most often, people just get to know about the name without attaching face to that name.

Then the third scenario could be that the member of parliament has failed to discharge their duty and people found the perfect opportunity to tell them so in the presence of their top most boss, which may have political repercussions in terms of minimising the political prospects of that member of parliament going forward.

If the opinion of the congregants is anything to go by, the conclusion is that Mulenga’s performance in the area, is simply not good enough and he will need to pull up his socks.

What those congregants are saying, which is representative of many in the country, is that members of parliament must earn their stay in office by offering effective representation of the people they represent, including being active in the same constituencies which elected them into office.

But we also need to reduce on the pressures we place on these politicians, particularly the members of parliament, as there is an expectation by the electorates that a member of parliament is the answer to all their needs in the constituency. There has been a tendency to put so much pressure on these members of parliament to the point where constituents view them as ATM machines for almost all their needs, including sponsoring funerals in the constituency. The politicians themselves are to blame for this state of being in the manner they go about with their campaigns where they invite constituents to view them as fixers or problem solvers of everything.

However, our society needs to get a proper understanding on the role of the member of parliament. Among the main duties of the member of parliament is to offer effective representation of their constituencies by advancing the interests of their constituents. They may even work with the central government in coordinating development and societal interests of their constituencies.

The fact that that the constituency development fund has been sufficiently scaled up under this UPND administration should actually provide them with a better platform to advance constituency interests without getting into the pressures of digging deeper into their pockets to do so.

However, the experience we have noticed is that many have used the scaled up CDF to pursue their own very narrow interests of lining their pockets using their proxies on most of these CDF committees.