President Hakainde Hichilema is an incompetent failure, says FDD leader Edith Nawakwi.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Nawakwi said the promises President Hichilema gave Zambians are now washing up in his face, including that the price of 25 kg break fast meal will be reduced to K50, yet the same is going at over K300 in several areas.
She said people will wake up one day and say to themselves, “what mistake did we make by voting for the UPND”, as the administration has sacrificed its own people on the altar of the IMF.
“Everybody saying he’s incompetent, that’s granted. Sometimes you use metaphors … I am saying that as far as I am concerned he’s a total failure. That’s all,” Nawakwi said. “If you can’t feed your people, you can’t provide medication … because what is national security? He may have the troops on the ground but he can’t provide medication and food. You can’t then defend your nation. So if you can’t defend your nation, you are a failure. And therefore at this point in time what we need is a master plan of how to get out of this mess.”
Nawakwi said on the hunger alone that is prevailing in the country, the same was a risk on national security as no soldier could even be sent to defend the nation while hungry.
She demanded to know the arrangements for increasing food production heading into the rain season, saying Agriculture permanent secretary Green Mbozi has said there is very high demand from outside on Zambia’s produce, therefore mechanisms must be put in place to scale up production.
Nawakwi said the focus should not just be on the maize, but other food crops like soya beans and beans, but unfortunately people who grew the soya beans in the last farming season were left in the cold, wondering whether they even have a government or not.
She charged that the ministers and permanent secretaries serving under President Hichilema were part of the reason for his failure, wondering why he was keeping Mtolo Phiri in government for instance, adding that he said PF failed yet he was working with Paul Kabuswe.
“And then you sit down and say these ones near me are okay but those ones at a distance are the ones who have a problem,” Nawakwi said.
She said she was shocked to hear Mbozi say that the price people were buying mealie meal at was the correct one as there was pressure from the outside, saying this was a person who is supposed to be helping the people and government come up with solutions yet he was saying such.
“Because food is politics. Food has the inevitable consequence of creating civil staring civil strife. We have gone through that as a country is 1987, the food riots, were not because the price of mealie meal was too high. It was K12 and people couldn’t stomach that,” Nawakwi said. “So when you have permanent secretaries with tongues which … as a head of state he should be very very concerned.”
Nawakwi said people are suffering with no jobs, and therefore to say that “you can go to hell, we are going to export the mealie meal, is outright careless from the permanent secretary. And such a person cannot be in the technical support team of the presidency.”
She said “the ps has the same useless language as the minister”, saying Mbozi was claiming that the main driver behind the mealie meal price was the international level pricing yet they are exporting the commodity.
Nawakwi said what the country is going through now was on account of the errors from the past farming season where they allowed foreigners to flood the villages buying maize in addition with the late delivery of farming inputs.
“I don’t know what he means by saying the correct price because I doubt if this gentleman or lady, whatever he is, whether he understands economics of pricing,” Nawakwi said. “He’s just demonstrating his basic ignorance about the politics of food. What is happening in this country is as a result of shortage of the commodity. It’s because of the inability of the UPND government to plan for adequate production. Last year fertilizer was not delivered. The little that you see is where people are just scrounging for fertilizer, they had to share one meda a group of 30. So he thinks we have short memories like him. Tell him to just shut up. Because look, he is annoying people. Some of us have passed through times when people are agitated. You don’t expect people in the government to agitate the public. You expect them kunyengelela bantu.”
She said the language that should be coming from Mbozi is telling people that the mistakes of the past season will not be repeated and incentivising them if they increase hectares in terms of growing food, arguing that there were no complaints of shortages in Tanzania because they produced more food.
“They don’t understand cropping. They pretend to know but alas they don’t know,” Nawakwi said.
And Nawakwi has accused the UPND of encouraging xenophobia against the Congolese doctors over what she said as plans not to renew contracts for Congolese doctors.
She said the country had doctors from everywhere but wondered why Congolese were the only ones being singled out, yet they were hard working doctors and very senior in government and private health institutions .
“My suggestion is that since the issue is about finances to recruit more doctors, let’s all agree that each constituency contributes to the salary account of new doctors in each district so that we can employ doctors and still leave those serving in their jobs until our local doctors reach that level,” Nawakwi said. “It’s not about money. We have enough money but just abuse. I am suggesting this with all the love I have for my country. I know most of the time when I tell them this is the way to go, they say chija chi face cho ipa. But I am saying yes, there is no money but the President has said he is going to increase Constituency Development Fund. That money should be set aside, not all of it for constituency, to buy equipment in the hospitals and to deploy new health practitioners … Some of those Congolese practitioners are very senior and you cannot say we shall just replace them with my daughter who has just graduated from Apex.”
She said the country must first address the issue of staffing before addressing further developments of classrooms and hospital extensions.
