We are ready for any eventuality, says Lwakatare

Dodoma. Chadema Members of Parliament who defied a quarantine order from their party Chairman, Mr Freeman Mbowe, and proceeded with parliamentary sessions, said yesterday that they are ready for any decision taken against them.

The party’s Parliamentary Secretary Wilfred Lwakatare said the MPs who are in session believe they are right. He told a press conference that they have wrongly been accused of going against the party’s directive.

Mr Mbowe issued an order recently requiring all Chadema MPs to stop attending the sessions and instead quarantine themselves for 14 days over Covid-19 fears following the deaths of three MPs in under two weeks. Mbowe accused the House leadership of mishandling the coronavirus responce.

The matter has since pittied the oppostion party and Speaker Job Ndugai who has asked them to refund allowances they had signed for and also present proof of Covid-19 tests after the 14 days.

Yesterday, the Bukoba Urban MP revealed that there were at least 16 Chadema legislators attending the Parliament sessions for now.

Mr Lwakatare said that the procedure used to bar them was not consultative.

He said if the party leadership saw their decision to continue attending Parliament as an act of defiance, they were ready to be punished as deemed fit.

“The directive wanting us to stop attending the sessions was issued on our whatsApp group. Some of us were not satisfied.”

with they way the decision was reached without involving us by conducting an official meeting with the members,”.

He noted that the directives were a sign of dictatorship that would divide members. According to him, if the party decided to make them accountable for their decision then he advised that it should also do the same for those who travelled out of Dodoma against the required procedure.

Speaking about speculation that they wanted to overthrow their leaders, he said he was only voted in for the position by other MPs who were present in Parliament.

“We have no plans to overthrow them, I was only made the coordinator following the Covid-19 pandemic that requires every Legislature who wants to contribute in the sessions to make it known in advance to the Chair of the meeting of which it will be part of my duties to do so,” he said.

In view of that, he said they were advised to appoint interim leaders to coordinate such decisions and not to overthrow their leaders as was currently being speculated.

He therefore called on Chadema Legislatirs who have absconded Parliament sessions to return back and continue with the sessions according to the constitution.