Kambwili, Musenge reconcile
The wrangles that have beset the National Democratic Congress (NDC) appear to be over after the party Secretary General Mwenya Musenge and consultant Chishimba Kambwili mended fences today.
The opposition party has announced that the duo and their respective camps reconciled after a 4-hour meeting held in Lusaka and presided over by NDC Vice President Joseph Akafumba.
Briefing the press today, Akafumba called for discipline and unity of purpose in the NDC.
He added that the purported letter to the Registrar of Societies by NDC Secretary General Mwenya Musenge should be ignored.
“I wish to put is clear that there is no such letter which has been submitted to the Registrar of Societies. What is circulating should be ignored with the contempt it deserves. However, just like any other party in Zambia and elsewhere, we have had our own internal misunderstanding which we have chosen to resolve in-house,” Akafumba said. “We have had a lengthy meeting with our secretary general, Mr Mwenya Musenge, who is still currently on leave. We called him to come and shed more light on this letter which I have already told you that it is neither here nor there.”
“However, it is worth noting that we have had our own internal challenges as I stated and we have made all attempts to resolve them. We therefore urge all our members in the rank and file to continue organizing the party and more so in Roan constituency and Bahati where there will shortly be by-elections…we are not going to allow misunderstandings to bring down our party. Therefore, members should desist from commenting on non issues.”
And Musennge, when asked to explain events of the past week given that he had been Kambwili’s good friend for a long time, said as Secretary General, his preoccupation was growing the party.
“Nothing much transpired. We are talking about issues that affect the party and as secretary, my interest is to grow the party and when there are serious issues that I feel are affecting the smooth operation of the party, it becomes a serious concern to me. So probably, in the way it was handled, it could have created a bit of some problems here and there, but I think we have learnt one or two things. That’s the reason why today we sat and discussed at length and whatever issues have come up, we will be able to table them. In the next few weeks, we will be sitting with my colleague to try and see whether we can reach a common ground so that we can quickly forge ahead and continue mobilizing,” said Musenge.
He also denied assertions that he has been paid K1 million by the governing PF to dismantle the NDC.