Africa-Press – Zambia. The Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit DMMU says the unit is incurring a huge cost of transporting political party cadres who are left behind after party events.
DMMU National Coordinator, Chanda Kabwe disclosed that the trend of transporting cadres has proved to be a huge cost to DMMU as cadres are left stranded after the events. Mr. Chanda has called on political parties to desist from ferrying cadres from one district to the other if they have no means of taking them back.
“The government through DMMU is compelled to transport stranded cadres back to their various districts after being used and left stranded by mostly the opposition political parties,” he said.
He said political parties should be responsible enough to take care of their cadres after their political activities as opposed to what has been happening where cadres are left stranded with no food and transport.
Mr. Kabwe mentioned incidents such as the nominations of Presidential candidates for the August 2021 elections where the DMMU repatriated over 100 cadres to Northwestern Province after they were left stranded by a named party leader and the recent incident in Chipata where the Unit has had to make arrangements to repatriate cadres to various districts of Eastern Province after they were left stranded.
He has since directed Eastern Province DMMU Regional Coordinator and Chipata District Commissioner who is the District Disaster Management Committee Chairperson to identify where the stranded cadres hail from and the cost implication for their repatriation.
Mr. Kabwe has since appealed to members of the public not to fall prey to political parties whose aim is to use them to show popularity and later dump them on the streets.
Meanwhile, Mr. Kabwe has expressed regret at the political violence which led to the demise of two alleged Patriotic Front (PF) cadres in Lusaka’s Kanyama Township, allegedly murdered by cadres from a named opposition political party saying government will render support to the two families. This was contained in a statement issued in Lusaka today by Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit Senior Communications Officer, Mathews Musukwa.
