Kampyongo Incompetent To Hold Office Of Home Affairs Minister - KBF

Home Affairs Minister Steven Kampyongo is irresponsible and incompetent to hold the office of Home Affairs Minister. This is according to Kelvin Fube Bwalya, pop[ularly known as KBF.

Speaking on a live Hot FM radio interview show on Friday, Mr Fube called for the dismissal of My Kampoyongo and questioned President Edgar Chagwa Lungu’s decision to continue shielding Mr Kampyongo despite a popular view that the Minister had lamentably failed to run such an important ministry.

“Mr President, why are you shielding Kampyongo? What’s the shielding? What is so special about Kampyongo? If you need him, at least do some transfers. Do some reshuffles, and move him to another ministry,” he said.

Mr Bwalya attributed the failure to properly apply the Public Order Act (POA) to the extremely low calibre of the current political leadership.

“But this what we have been accustomed to now because this is the kind of Minister we have. How many times should people be killed before this Minister is fired? He is my young brother, I know him but he is just irresponsible. He is incompetent. He must be fired,” Mr Bwalya said.

KBF who is also a criminal lawyer and renowned political strategist regretted that it was evident that the Home Affairs ministry had become too big for a person of Mr Kampyongo’s calibre, observing that every time a ministerial statement was coming out of Mr. Kampyongo’s mouth, there was alarm and wondered why the nation should always panic every time he speaks.

“Honourable Minister, kwata akamukanwa. Amano yaba mumatwi,” Mr Bwalya advised the Minister.

“The other day, he was talking about foreigners who have come into the country. He has no evidence. He is just talking. He wants to alarm the nation, all the time,” Mr Bwalya said.

Answering to a question on the Public Order Act, Mr Bwalya explained that the POA was a pre-cursor to economic prosperity, adding that the order of the nation and the peace in the nation was always important.

“We cannot just be putting things out there that people must do what they want, there must be order in the nation,” he said.

Mr Bwalya observed that although the POA was a very important piece of legislation, in its current form, it needed a bit of amendment because of the current political dispensation the country finds itself, stressing that there was an urgent need to amend POA to suit the current circumstances.

Mr. Bwalya is of the view that Zambia was currently using an archaic law for modern times and explained that the purpose of the POA was to regulate behaviour in the public so that peace prevailed.

“Now with the protests that you are talking about, for example; name one window pane, one glass that was broken, one public property that was damaged, one car that was damaged by those people that were rioting or protesting, nothing! Why did the Police shoot? Why did they use live ammunition, why? There’s no reason,” he observed.

The POA was an important piece of legislation because it prevails where there are situations of conflict. If two political parties are in the same environment, the Police must know how they are going to deploy the two factions so that there’s peace between those two groups of people and also to know that whatever they are trying to do, there should be peace from other people, meaning collateral people. That should be very important, he explained.

“You as a standby or a passer-by must not be inconvenienced because there’s a political rally somewhere. Let them have their political rallies,” he said.

Mr Bwalya reminded Zambians that the Supreme Court had already ruled on this matter as to how the POA should be applied. He said all people needed to do was just to inform the Police that on this date, they will be having a meeting and ask the Police whether they have enough Police officers to police the area where such a meeting would be held. If not, the Police can advise and give alternative dates when such a meeting can be held and how it can be conducted.

The police would just want to know who the speakers are, how many people are expected to police that area to ensure that peace prevailed.

In terms of economic prosperity, Mr. Bwalya said the POA was also important because it puts people who are not part of politics, who are running businesses and other things so that they should not be interfered with but also that their properties will be protected.

“That’s important. The POA cannot just be thrown away, no. It can be reviewed but right now, we have a Minister who doesn’t even understand what that POA is supposed to be doing. To him, he thinks it’s supposed to be there to suppress the people. The Minister wants people to always live in fear,” he said.

Asked why the PF under the leadership of President Michael Chilufya Sata, the POA was not reviewed, Mr Bwalya said it is the calibre of the people who are in government, reiterating the current poor leadership.

“Please understand me, there’s poor leadership. Some of the people who are in government don’t even understand why this law was made, in the first place. They don’t understand what is in the preamble of this Act. Some of them can read but do not understand it. Understanding is different from reading. 

“So if you think you are going to have the same mentality when the Police was a mobile Unit, which was curbing riots in the colonial days, and that’s the same training manual you have at Lilayi today, you are living in the past, change the manual, change the mentality of the Police, engage psychologist, train and retrain the Police and make them understand that things have changed. The population is not the same”.

He said the Zambian population were now free to express themselves and observed that social media was not there in those days.

“So, you can’t hide a lot of things. When the shooting happened, within minutes, the whole country knew what was happening. You think you can hide that? We all saw those police officers arriving. We all saw dead bodies lying around. You think we want to see those pictures, we don’t,” Mr. Bwalya said.

This article originally appeared on Lusaka Times