By Mubanga Mubanga
Vice-President Mutale Nalumango says President Hakainde Hichilema did not say he was going to fix things in one day.
Featuring on the Hot Seat program on Hot FM yesterday, Nalumango said the only thing President Hichilema promised to fix instantly upon assuming office was the exchange rate. Nalumango stressed that fixing the country’s problems took time.
“In fixing, did we say in one day? The only thing l remember him saying is that, as soon as we enter office the Kwacha will appreciate. He said that. The rest fix it, it has a time frame. And l think we did what we could. What brought us down was the drought. That is when this loadshedding became worse. And last year 2025 he had pronounced that this loadshedding will be over by December 2025. And l think it is generally over. We may see outages here due to many other forces,” Nalumango said.
“He has worked on fixing that basically is why you give a five year term, that certain things will be fixed within that time. The situation became worse when the drought came. I can also add that the power deficit was also made worse because the industries are growing. More mines are opening, you know more factories are opening. You know manufacturing is growing. So all that stressed our expanded capacity of power.”
On the national reserves, Nalumango said the government was not keeping money in the reserves at the expense of the poor people. She said the money in the reserves were for national emergencies. She added that the UPND was a pro-poor government which could not deprive the people of their money.
“The situation is this government under Hakainde Hichilema still loves the Zambians, and will not hide the money. But this is the savings for the Zambians. The government still cares for the people, and will do that which is within their power to support the living standards of the people. That is why if you look at your budget, the budget is not like going to savings,” Nalumango said.
“ Please look at your budget, and see that this budget, for you mweba sambilila (those of you who are educated), that is why l will repeat myself, mweba sambilila it will be malice to say, this government just wants to keep money, because it is you who reads the budget. What is in the budget? The budget is extremely pro-poor. This budget of this government is pro-poor.”
On former PF members who were joining the UPND. Nalumango said those who were joining had seen the value in the UPND.
“… Even you Chisha you may not perform your duty in a partisan manner. But inside of you, you know exactly which party you belong to. And therefore, if you choose to move should you be rejected? You are mentioning figures like (Robert) Chabinga. I don’t even know which position Chabinga held in the Patriotic Front government.I don’t know. I know that Miles Sampa left the government quite sometime back,” said Nalumango.
“You remember we worked with him earlier in 2015, maybe you have forgotten? He only came back in a by-election, of course he was in a local government. So these are people you can’t even start naming individuals. It’s just because you named them. But, whoever chooses to join us, it is because they have seen some value in the UPND that they would want to be part of.”
