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| National |
| UDF forms anti-Bingu task force |
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by
Peter Makossah, 26 July 2004
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11:13:10
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A group of disgruntled UDF senior officials who are unhappy with President Bingu wa Mutharika for sidelining them and continuously exposing the former government’s financial mismanagement have formed a task force comprising media practitioners and some church leaders to discredit the government in order to have the president impeached.
A senior UDF executive member said on Sunday a group of senior party officials have formed a task force to discredit everything that Mutharika does so that he can be seen as failure.
The official said the disgruntled bigwigs are using some journalists and church officials, who they pay K10,000 ($93) because they are scared that Mutharika’s tough stand on corruption and the former government’s mismanagement would have them arrested for graft or fraud.
“You know most of those that were left in the cold think that they are not safe and with the coming in of Ken Zikhale Ng’oma who is just revealing everything, they feel not safe and just want to embarrass President Mutharika in his efforts to root out corruption public funds mismanagement. They are using some of the UDF internal media houses,” said the UDF source.
UDF publicity secretary Ken Lipenga, who is also government spokesman, refused to comment on the matter, saying: “I don’t think I need to comment on that issue because I don’t know anything on what you are talking about.”
State House Chief of Staff Ken Zikhale Ng’oma confirmed in an interview that he had received the reports that some UDF officials are giving out money to some journalists and church leaders to “destroy” the President.
“We have received such reports that some media practitioners are being paid K10,000 to sabotage the President. But that does not move us because we are moving in the right direction. We know that where there is light, darkness escapes.
“Whatever the case they will be exposed with their sinister motives. We are only trying to clean up the mess for the betterment of the Malawian nation,” said the outspoken Ng’oma.
In what the main opposition MCP described as a UDF internal plot, the Church and Society Programme of the CCAP Blantyre Synod last Thursday called on members of Parliament to support a motion to impeach Mutharika, accusing him of breaching the Constitution by removing former DPP Fahad Assani before his term ends.
MCP said it would not be part of the impeachment, saying the synod is being used by “some disgruntled members in the ruling UDF who are fighting an internal battle against Mutharika.”
“It would be difficult for us to be party to something we know is an internal UDF battle. We won’t be part of the impeachment now unless we are really convinced that the church’s call is genuine,” MCP’s deputy publicist Bintony Kutsaira was quoted as saying.
Some UDF members of Parliament were reported to have been summoned to a meeting by the disgruntled gurus to plot for Mutharika’s impeachment for flouting the Republican Constitution by removing the former DPP Fahad Assani before the expiry of his contract.
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