By Merlyn Mwanza
Lunte member of parliament (PF) Mutotwe Kafwaya has mentioned ministers for Home Affairs, energy and agriculture as working against the President by going against his campaign promises.
But Republican Vice-President Mutale Nalumango said it should never be allowed for children to utter the insults they uttered in the audio showing police officers mating out brutality on the insulters.
During the Vice-President question and answer session, Kafwaya, the former transport minister in the PF administration, said “it’s become abundantly clear that some ministers” are working against President Hakainde Hichilema and the people of Zambia in general.
He said Agriculture minister Mtolo Phiri was working against the President for announcing the floor price per 50 kilogram bag of maize at K160 against the President’s campaign promises to peg the price at KK250 per 50kg bags of maize.
Kafwaya said Energy minister Peter Kapala has been increasing the price of fuel, now standing at close to K25 per liter from the K17.60 10 months ago, against the President’s promise to reduce the price to less than K12.
For Home Affairs minister Jack Mwiimbu, Kafwaya referred to police brutality on the youths in Luapula Province when the President promised the rule of law.
Kafwaya wondered why the President “was not breathing fire on the ministers working against him and the Zambian people.”
But Vice-President Nalumango said there were no ministers who were working against the President, saying they were a united entity.
On the police brutality, Vice-President Nalumango said although two wrongs did not make it right, no one would have loved listening to the insults the youths uttered, saying such became institutionalised under the PF and they even made songs out of such.
“How can we allow such kind of language from a child given birth by a woman?” Vice-President Nalumango said. “Maybe you saw the beating and not the insults…and I said two wrongs never make a right, so even the beating was wrong.”
And in his question to the Vice-President, Shiwang’andu member of parliament Stephen Kampyongo asked Nalumango how the government expected to regulate the prices of fuel, now that Indeni, TAZAMA and Ndola Energy were gone. He wondered how the government expected to stabilise the cost of commodities which were mostly influenced by the price of fuel.
But Vice-President Nalumango said the government too was concerned about the cost of goods on the people but that the price of fuel was determined by outside factors.
But she pointed to the reduction in the inflation rate as something that should give hope to the Zambian people that things will get better.
She argued that Indeni was not operating even during the time the PF were in power.
