By Staff Reporter
Businesses like DSTV are taking advantage of increased fuel prices to rip-off Zambians because President Hakainde Hichilema has failed to implement his Y-C formula to improve things, says Lupososhi member of parliament (PF) Emmanuel Mpankata.
And Mpankata said there should be alternatives to monopolistic companies like DSTV, suggesting that the several arms of government working together should find ways to bring more players on board, including promoting local companies.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on the DSTV packages that have been increased to K1100 from K995 for premium, K680 from K600 for compact plus, K450 from K400 Compact among several others, Mpankata claimed that DSTV is exploiting the bad economic environment to increase their prices.
When increasing the prices for 2021, DSTV used the weakened Kwacha at the time as the reason for doing so, however, since then the local currency has remained relatively stable, yet the prices have been increased
“It’s very unfortunate that DSTV has decided to increase…You see there are so many shocks because of the fuel hikes and other inconsistencies in the running of the government, so many things will be affected. The cost of living for the people will be affected. Businesses have been affected because of the current policies of the UPND government. People can no longer trust them because they are too inconsistent they don’t live by what they say. Yes DSTV, much as I condemn their increase but I can say that they have no choice,” Mpankata said, saying a monopolistic company with the sole purpose of making profit was exploiting what was obtaining. “This is what they are doing, but don’t forget that they also have employees, technicians who drive to go and maintain their equipment countrywide, and they use vehicles to move. And those vehicles use fuel and once the cost of fuel goes up it affects a lot of things. So they are just responding to what is happening in the current economy of the UPND administration.”
Mpankata said Zambians will continue facing the same exploitation from DSTV until alternatives are found.
“This is the situation we face when we don’t have home grown solutions, where you fail to promote your own industries, home grown technologies, because you are just depending on what you are being given. DSTV are a monopolistic business and for them they are here for profit,” Mpankata said. “They are not here for anything. They will say they are here for service but it is a service for a profit and they can take advantage of any economic situation, any business environment they will take advantage to rip us. And we can’t blame them they are in business. All we can blame is that it’s the current environment in which we are operating in.”
Mpankat continued.
“Look when we had one mobile operator you remember how much we used to pay for just to speak for a minute, we were paying exorbitantly but the government opened up the market, we have now four mobile operators and the cost of service has gone down. And this is what we need to do even in the TV stations. We have opened up so many but most of them are offering local content, they can’t provide us with what people want like DSTV,” Mpankata said. “So what is very important for us it to provide an enabling environment for businesses like Diamond TV, CAMNET TV, Muvi TV and other television stations…these are the ones that we need to promote using policies so that if we have our own it’s not easy for them to exploit us. If we just depend on monopolistic services this is what we will be faced with my brother.”
But put to him that others have argued that the President could not be blamed on the fuel price increments on account of the Ukraine-Russia war, Mpankata said President Hichilema formulated his “Y-C formula” before the start of the war, and was elected into office before the war commenced.
“Just when he was elected into government they increased fuel. Why did he fail to use that formula? Why now use the war today as an excuse not to apply the formula? Because that formula was fake. It was a fluke, it was a lie. That was deception, political deception. They came into power using deceit which is very unfortunate. That shouldn’t be of a leader,” said Mpankata. “He doesn’t need time, nine months already we have given him nine months. We only have two months before he cloaks one year into office, what has he done? Nothing. He has done nothing, he has failed.”
Put to him that the UPND government argued that they have introduced free education and increased CDF, stopped caderism, among other achievements, Mpankata said free education could not really be said to be free given how it has been implemented as the teachers were now under more stress, and that the students who get on buses to get to and from school were now paying more because of increased fuel cost.
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