PF MPs Reject Motion for Provision Of Loans To All Eligible Students

RULING PF members of parliament on Wednesday evening refused to support a motion that the House urges the government to provide loans to all eligible University of Zambia students who applied for the 2016/2017 calendar and already attending classes.

And higher education minister Professor Nkandu Luo says she cannot support a “political” motion.

Mazabuka Central UPND member of parliament Garry Nkombo moved the motion, saying UNZA students had petitioned his Katuba counterpart Patricia Mwashingwele, seeking academic sponsorship.

“There are students at the University of Zambia who have not been given loans [and] these students are already attending class, sir but now are traumatised that anytime they may be excluded from the university for failing to pay tuition and other fees. In this academic year, sir, 5,439 eligible students applied for academic loans. Initially, 2,009 were successful and after an appeal process, a further plus or minus 500 were considered and the rest are still in limbo but attending class,” Nkombo, who is also opposition whip, told the House.

“Mr Speaker, this particular motion has been occasioned and is pursuant to many provisions of the law, which includes the Constitution of the Republic of Zambia and other subsidiary laws such as the higher education loans and scholarship bill number 31 of 2016. This motion to me is of a national character because it’s cross-cutting. We need to invest in the future of these children by providing them financial aid whenever it’s needed. I would like members to search the heart of their hearts to understand the things that I have raised in this motion.”

Nkombo, whose motion met intermittent heckles from ruling party members of parliament, at one time asked Speaker Dr Patrick Matibini whether he could help him in maintaining order in the House.

“You advised me not to respond to the running commentaries but I have got ears and I’m detracted very easily and that’s why I’m taking very long to finish. So, as you had asked the chief whip (Richard Musukwa) to assist [controlling the House], I’m also in the whipping system. Maybe I should assist you!” said Nkombo.

In buttressing Nkombo’s motion, Mwashingwele, who seconded the motion, said apart from being a human right, education was an equaliser.

Nalikwanda UPND member of parliament Professor Geoffrey Lungwangwa, a former education minister in the MMD government, supported the motion and urged other lawmakers to unite and support it because “not doing so is actually denial of the future of this country”.

Mirriam Chonya, the Kafue UPND member of parliament who once served as education permanent secretary and Zambia National Education Coalition executive director, said the least any government could do to any citizen was to provide them with an opportunity for education.

“This particular issue, Mr Speaker, is non-contentious and I did not expect us to have varying views when we are discussing the plight and future of our children that need to access education,” said Chonya.

Keembe’s Princess Kasune said education must be accessed by all as one of the means to ending poverty in society.

But Prof Luo, in her consequent disparate debate, focused on trivialities, saying the motion was taken to the House under a hidden agenda.

“When people have hidden agendas, they even organise children from the street…Mr Speaker, for a long time, the University of Zambia and the Copperbelt University have been used to organise riots and people people’s properties have been broken at great cost. Mr Speaker, the motion on the floor was brought here not in good faith but for political expediency because if these people (UPND MPs) respected this government, they would have been here last Friday [during the state of the nation address by President Edgar Lungu],” Prof Luo said in her disjointed debate, while some UNZA students who pushed in the petition sat in the gallery just above the parliamentary chamber.

“Mr Speaker, the [motion] debate was political and so, I want to give them a political response!”

Meanwhile, Prof Luo threatened UNZA students who would at any point riot, saying they would be chased into the streets.

“Mr Speaker, let me tell this august House and the nation that there shall be discipline at the University of Zambia. There will be no sacred cows; when any student misbehaves, they will find their way to the streets, the markets or the bus stations where people who do that kind of behaviour find themselves. Universities are centres of knowledge, that’s where you find intellectuals and intellectuals will not be organised by anybody and come to this House,” said Prof Luo.

The motion was, however, buried after an electronic voting that saw 87 members of parliament opposing it, 53 in support of it while one member abstained.