By Daimone Siulapwa
IN the next few articles to come, I will break it down as to how our politicians are playing games with us, be it the defectors from MMD to PF or PF to MMD, including the so called Rebel MPs. On the expense of development, they have decided to play games moving from party to another just to secure a position of power for personal gain. Are these the kind of leaders we want? The choice is yours. We will be voting soon.
BEFORE the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) national convention, former party deputy national secretary Mbita Chitala seemingly saw nothing wrong with the ruling party.
Let us put it this way. Mbita Chitala was interested in the position of MMD national secretary, but unfortunately he did not get the backing that he wanted from President Rupiah, despite his pronouncements in a private tabloid that party organs across the country were clamouring for him to take over the position from Katele Kalumba.
The interpretation, at least going by the interest that Dr Chitala had shown in the position of national secretary, which would have made him the chief executive of the party, is that the man still believed in the MMD vision.
Had he won the position of national secretary, Dr Chitala would today have been appearing in the so-called government owned and State-controlled media not only defending the policies of President Banda and the MMD, but also attacking the opposition, particularly Patriotic Front (PF) leader Michael Sata, who is the main challenger in this year’s elections.
By the way, Dr Chitala was President Banda’s campaign manager in the 2008 presidential elections and went about his work to ensure that he trounces Mr Sata.
But matters have seemingly changed now.
Dr Chitala, who thinks he has so much influence in Mbala is on a campaign trail trashing RB and the MMD while heaping all sorts of praise on Mr Michael Sata.
Question to ask is at what point did Dr Chitala, who together with Akashambatwa Mbikusita-Lewanika are the two founder members of the MMD, come to realise that the PF was the best thing that can happen to Zambia.
Maybe, who is this same Mbita Chintundya Chitala other than the fact that the late Levy Mwanawasa fired him as Ambassador to Libya after failing to play by the rules of international diplomacy?
After spearheading the formation of the MMD, he was elected party deputy national secretary and appointed deputy minister of finance in Frederick Chiluba’s first government. He was later relieved of the post and expelled from the party in 1995.
Together with the late Dean Mung’omba and Chulu Kalima, they formed the Zambia Democratic Congress (ZADECO), which against the advice of other opposition parties unsuccessfully contested the 1996 elections. After that dismal failure, he left ZADECO and active politics only to resurface towards the 2001 elections.
But before that, and just after the formation of the MMD national interim committee, which had the likes of Arthur Wina, Vernon Mwaanga, Chiluba, Ephraim Chibwe, Levy Mwanawasa, Andrew Kashita, Aka and Keli Walubita in it, Mbita Chitala was left disappointed at the fact that he was left out.
With that, he wrote a letter to the chairman Arthur Wina in which he pleaded his case. Thereafter, Arthur Wina was left with no choice but to convince other members of the committee to co-opt Chitala as deputy national secretary.
When Chitala was appointed finance deputy minister, he became one of the biggest defenders of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), which we know left most of our citizens in dire straits.
Responding to two articles that appeared in the Sunday Times (October 30, 19 94) titled “SAP makes Rich Richer, Poor Poorer” by Josias Mbuzi and another by Nason Banda in the Times of Zambia (November 12, 1994) under the headline “Is SAP in the interest of the majority”, Chitala said “the two are some utopian critics of the government’s reform programme that continue to appear in our media”.
“A quick response to these articles is that they were arrant nonsense and the authors would be well-advised to go back to school and catch up with the recent work in development studies,” Chitala wrote in a response letter.
So, with the support of Chitala, under SAP, about 12 companies were wound up and liquidated, 13 handed back to the owners for almost nothing, 59 mostly run-down farms and companies were sold to non-indigenous Zambians, mostly Asians and Greeks while 51 companies, the very best and profitable of the parastatals, were sold to foreign interests. This last batch included Northern Breweries, Zambia Breweries, Zambia Sugar Company, Daily Produce Board, Mpongwe Development Company, Chilanga Cement, BP Zambia, ZAMEFA, ROP Ltd and Pamodzi Hotel among others. As for the nerve centre of Zambia, the mines, the story is well documented.
Later of course, Mbita was fired, for what he terms opposing corruption and drug dealing in government although it is widely believed that those who truly opposed these traits are Dean Mung’omba, Dr Boniface Kawimbe, Dr Matthias Mpande, Katele Kalumba and Aka.
In his book, Not Yet Democracy, Mbita Chitala accuses Michael Sata, Enock Kavindele, Sikota Wina and his wife Nakatindi as well as the late Kangwa Nsuluka of orchestrating his dismissal from the MMD.
When ZADECO lost the elections, and following the shooting of opposition leaders like Dr Kaunda and Roger Chongwe in Kabwe, Mbita Chitala announced his retirement from active politics on September 11, 1997.
A few years later, he rejoined the MMD after being convinced to do so by Michael Sata who argued that with the death of Ronald Penza, he had remained a lone voice from the Northern Province in the party.
But also, it seems the other motivation for rejoining the MMD was the opportunity to allow him sort out his financial positions. In his book, he admits that he suffered immensely including being denied to supply paper and other office equipment to the bank of Zambia and almost getting killed in Angola where he had gone to look for diamonds.
“While all this was happening, my personal economy was also going down. Bills of all manners were accumulating. I could not pay school fees for my children which forced me to re-locate them from private schools to government schools.
“This caused enormous street on them, but I explained my situation to them. My electricity and water bill was regularly disconnected as was my telephone. The rates of the council remained unpaid and I was a victim of harassment by bailiffs.
“At the same time, I had several court cases. My life was real hell, it was because of all these trials that finally, I made a decision to re-enter active party politics.
With respect to what party it was obvious that my former party, the MMD would be the only sanctuary,” he writes.
Clearly, Mbita Chitala has demonstrated that the decisions he makes in politics are driven more by the stomach than any principles. If his personal economy was doing well, he would not have re-joined the MMD.
With that, one would wonder whether the decision to support Michael Chilufya Sata for the Presidency in this year’s election, is driven by genuine reasons or its because he see’s an opportunity to be rewarded with a job which will eventually improve his personal economy.
Michael Sata should be careful with people like Mbita Chintundya Chitala.
