By Patson Chilemba
Lucky Mulusa is biting the finger that feeds him as he is on a payroll from the money Felix Mutati single-handedly provides, says an MDC official in the Science and Technology minister Felix Mutati-led party.
And Lusaka provincial secretary Emmanuel Kalasa said Mutati has been solely sponsoring the party, including paying for the secretariat, helping with funerals and most recently providing funds for the formation of a cooperative, warning party secretary general Lucky Mulusa to leave the UPND alliance peacefully.
Kalasa is part of the group favouring that Mutati must maintain his ministerial position, but there are those who are of the view that he must stop benefiting alone by stepping down to mobilise the party, with the party’s Lusaka provincial youth chairperson Teddy Mtamira facing disciplinary action for being among those supporting such a move.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on Mulusa’s assertions that the MDC’s working relationship with the UPND was not smooth as members feel rejected by their senior alliance partners, Kalasa urged Mulusa to temper his expectations.
“You see, we must limit our expectations. Him he’s administrator of our party, so whatever he says it might be portrayed that it has the backing of our party president. Which is not true. The general membership are also amazed and surprised by this statement. You see the president has been very concise and straightforward, ‘if you are not happy with me or my running of the party you leave’,” Kalasa said. “You see ba Mulusa he was part of the people that were negotiating between our party and these other alliance partners. So maybe he overrated himself, ‘oh because we have won now I might be there.’ But it’s too early. All of us are expectant.”
Kalasa said Mulusa must have addressed his concern with his UPND counterpart Batuke Imenda first, or even Mutati himself before issuing a statement to the media.
“Some of these failures I can blame on ba Mulusa. UPND are the party in government, of course we are alliance partners yes. But it’s UPND government. If we have got things we are not happy about as alliance partners he’s got the right to go and see his fellow SG than what he is doing now,” Kalasa said. “What he has done is stabbing the president in the back. So he has put the president in a bad situation, and moreover he is SG, he can only say such words if and when the members agitate for that.”
Kalasa said moreover, Mutati was the only one paying money for the secretariat and the other small issues.
“Even forming of cooperatives, yesterday at secretariat ‘this is money for us to form cooperatives’. It’s his contribution. So all those people who are saying this and that are not even adding any value to. Yes he’s doing that. He’s the one who goes around here K2, here K3. These you call SG, the national chairmen they don’t contribute anything towards the running of the party,” Kalasa said. “It’s started after we broke away from MMD remember? He’s been solely, the legal fees they were so exorbitant, single handedly he pays them, he clears them. So how ungrateful can you be? And moreover our SG he’s on the payroll of the party, he’s a paid officer. Then again how do you bite the finger that feeds you?”
Kalasa said he will be at the secretariat tomorrow together with the other officials to “raise our concerns and say if he is not happy with the alliance he leaves peacefully…when he hasn’t been contributing anything financially to the party, because running the party is finances.”
