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FORMER ZESCO board chairperson Father Frank Bwalya has apologised to the nation for keeping quiet when PF is busy making mistakes as he alleged.
Fr. Bwalya who was speaking on a MUVI TV’s The assignment on Sunday evening, said he quit ZESCO to become free and unencumbered by anything, so that he can once again speak for the people of Zambia.
“I am back. I apologise to UPND leader HH and MMD President Dr. Nevers Mumba for not speaking out for them when they were arrested on flimsy charges on Livingstone and Kitwe, respectively,” Father Bwalya said.
He explained that he decided to resign from ZESCO last Thursday as people could not take his position on various governance issues as they portrayed that he had been compromised by the job.
On the corruption fight, he said President Sata should marry his talk with deeds. Fr. Bwalya said the people were losing hope in the PF campaign promises. He hoped President Sata’s statement advising the Anti-Corruption to notify him before investigating a Minister was a slipping of a tongue.
Father Bwalya however expressed happiness that former president Rupiah Banda’s immunity from prosecution had been removed. He maintained that he wants to see president Michael Sata succeed but said PF has started behaving like the MMD when it was in power.
Fr. Bwalya who passionately heavily campaigned for the ruling Patriotic Front and Sata to a point of beheading a chicken at a public rally said President Sata is paddling the boat (PF symbol) alone and if that continues the boat is going nowhere.
The Roman Catholic cleric denounced the PF government for wasting resources on a series of needless by-elections.
“Instead of wasting money on by-elections, they should pump that money to needy areas in the nation. ZESCO needs money to stop the load-shedding, let the money be pumped into ZESCO instead of these stupid By-elections which they are causing,” he said.
But Father Bwalya declared his love for President Sata to whom he said he owes his life “because had MMD retained power they would have killed me that is why I want President Sata to succeed”.
He believes Sata has a heart for the poor but may just now be a lone paddler of “Ubwato” with no support from colleagues.
The Catholic Priest who launched a red card campaign against MMD in 2011 to signal time had come for the party to go says he has now raised a white card for PF. He said the white card which he displayed during the programme was a sign of caution to the PF government.
“We have started blowing the whistle,” Fr. Bwalya said after he blew the whistle on the programme. “The referee is saying play on but please stop talking about HH’s (Hakainde Hichilema) account, stop talking about people of Southern province will not get development.”
The cleric said he never supported PF in order to be rewarded with a job and all he ever asked from PF was a scholarship to go and study law abroad to return to Zambia later and serve the poor.
But he said now he would decline a scholarship from PF even if they offered him one as that window has passed.
He urged the PF administration not to forget the sufferings of the people and not concern themselves with lofty things when the Zambian people want their staple food provided.
“Why get upset over the brown grass when a lot of people are suffering? That is an insult to the people,” said Fr. Bwalya in reference to the recent situation where Sata got furious with his State House Staff over the poor state house grounds and grass.
He revealed that he was writing a book entitled ‘I am My Decisions’.
Asked to comment on President Sata urging priests to stick to the pulpit and not to get involved to politics, Fr. Bwalya said the church used the same pulpit to campaign for him in 2011.
“President Sata should not have said that; he should not have said the clergy should stick
to the pulpit,” Fr. Bwalya said. “We campaigned for him from the pulpit.”
Fr. Bwalya said he was on 40 days retreat and prayer reflecting on his life and would reveal the next direction he was to take after quitting ZESCO
