The development of a constituency is a responsibility of the government and not members of parliament,” says People’s Party leader Mike Mulongoti.
Commenting on the decision by Matero member of parliament Miles Sampa to donate his gratuity to buying taxis with the view of empowering people in his constituency, Mulongoti said the action would put pressure on other members of parliament to please their constituencies.
“A member of parliament is just an agent of the people as well as of government. So if you want to commercialise it by using your own resources, you are creating an appetite that will be difficult to satisfy. The logical thing for me is to persuade government to attend to the demands of the people. After all, the responsibility of government is to maximise the happiness of its people and every constituency must get attention from government,” Mulongoti said.
“Sometimes some constituencies see a lot of development because a member of parliament is very active, lobbying with government and NGOs and institutions that can help spend a lot of time in their constituencies. So I don’t believe in the fact that a member of parliament can on his/her own develop a constituency.”
Mulongoti said members of parliament must not behave or be viewed as ‘Father Christmas’.
“They (voters) will be at your door every day and I think that is a dangerous position. We know that politics have been commercialised over many years because people are using money,” he said.
“Mind you, the toxic effect of that will spread to other constituencies. So those who don’t see MPs using their personal cash seem to think their members of parliament are greedy when their position is they want to see government providing.”
Mulongoti, however, condemned the call by some members of parliament to have their pay increased, saying this was immoral as a wage freeze had been effected on civil servants.
And Mulongoti yesterday expressed amazement at the “insistence by small parties like NAREP” to participate in by-elections in which they had not won a single seat.
“They have just gone to embarrass themselves because if you don’t have structures on the ground, it’s a waste of time. There is one example of a party which is participating in by-elections – NAREP – and have never won a single one, not that they don’t exist but like I am saying, you need to have structures on the ground to be able to support you before you do that,” Mulongoti said.
“For us, we are realistic enough to accept that don’t run before you go. We are preparing for 2016 and for us that is the best way to go. This question of trying to show you have capacity can lead to disappointment at times.” Mulongoti said it was safe to contest in 2016 when Parliament had been dissolved. “If you have so much resources that you can spend now, go ahead, we are not stopping anyone,” he said.
“For us who are new, we can’t just go to waste resources just like that when we know that the big boys with their money are there,” said Mulongoti.