Who Is Mutotwe Kafwaya?

Until this month, Mutotwe Kafwaya was best known as one of Zambia's longer-serving backbench-turned-Cabinet politicians, a Patriotic Front stalwart who held two ministries under President Edgar Lungu and represented Lunte in Parliament for nearly a decade. Today, he is the subject of a very different kind of public attention: his family says they have not been able to confirm his whereabouts or safety since 14 August, even as government's own account of a major security operation that weekend names eleven other people but not him.

FROM ACCOUNTANCY TO PARLIAMENT

Kafwaya was born in 1976 and trained as an accountant, holding a Bachelor's degree in Accountancy, a Master of Business Administration, and a professional qualification from the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). He entered Parliament in 2016 as the Patriotic Front's Member for Lunte, a constituency in Northern Province, unseating the territory long associated with Felix Mutati, who had represented it for over a decade before moving on to national-level Cabinet roles of his own.

Kafwaya rose quickly within the PF government. In November 2018, President Edgar Lungu appointed him Minister of Works and Supply, succeeding Mutati in that portfolio. Less than a year later, in 2019, he was moved to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, a post he held until the Patriotic Front lost power in the August 2021 election, when he was succeeded by the incoming UPND government's Frank Tayali. Throughout his time in Cabinet, Kafwaya was a vocal defender of PF's record, telling a radio audience in early 2020 that former ministers criticising the party "did nothing sensible during their time in office," and expressing confidence, ultimately misplaced, that Zambians would return PF to power in 2021.

A BACKBENCHER, THEN A PARTY LOYALIST IN DECLINE

Kafwaya retained his Lunte seat after PF's 2021 defeat and remained one of the party's more publicly reflective voices as it struggled in opposition. In one widely shared piece published under his name in March 2026, he wrote an almost elegiac reflection on what he called PF's decline, addressing the party directly: "PF, the party we all belonged to, what has become of you?" He credited the party's founders and its late leader, former President Edgar Lungu, while lamenting the divisions that followed Lungu's death.

Kafwaya has also weathered his share of public mix-ups. In October 2025, he had to publicly clarify that he was not the "Kafwaya" referenced by Vice President Mutale Nalumango in Parliament regarding former ministers who had allegedly failed to repay funds after the 2016 dissolution of Parliament, a case of mistaken identity involving a different, unrelated former official named Dawson Kafwaya. "People must learn to check the facts before rushing to comment," he said at the time. "The truth is available and clear," a line that reads differently now, given how much less clear the facts of his own situation have become.

WHERE THINGS STAND NOW

By the run-up to the 2026 general election, Kafwaya had aligned himself with the Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance backing NRPUP presidential candidate Brian Mundubile. That association placed him at the centre ofKafwaya had aligned himself with the Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance backing NRPUP presidential candidate Brian Mundubilelonga residence on the night of 14 August, and that soldiers shot Kafwaya twice during a raid on the property, taking him to Maina Soko Military Hospital in critical condition.

Government officials, have specifically denied this, saying hospital records showed no admission under his name. A government statement issued by Patrick Kangwa, Secretary to the cabinet on 16 August, giving its first detailed account of the operation and naming eleven people arrested and facing charges in connection with it, does not mention Kafwaya at all, neither among those charged nor among those said to have fled.

His family has since spoken publicly. His son, said the last time he heard from his father was on 12 August, his own birthday, and appealed directly to President Hichilema: "Imagine yourself in my position. How would your sons feel if they do not know where you are, and how you are doing, and have no way of reaching you? Please help me find my dad." His elder brother, Busuma Mukupa, confirmed the family has been unable to establish Kafwaya's whereabouts or safety since 14 August and has received no official communication from authorities. More recently his wife has made an appeal to the government regarding the whereabouts of her husband.

MUVI has not independently verified Mundubile's account of the shooting, government's denial, or the family's statement that no official information has been provided to them. As of this report, Mutotwe Kafwaya's status remains the one significant unresolved question in an otherwise detailed official account of the events of that weekend.