By Patson Chilemba
There will be no need for us to change a presidential candidate in 2026, says Infrastructure minister Charles Milupi
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Milupi, the ADD leader and chairperson of the UPND alliance, insisted on the advantages incumbency.
“So I am part of the alliance, I am part of government. We are putting things right and there is value in our president. We made a decision to field him as our presidential candidate. You people announced that. It was done here at my house. I was chairing, I said we have made the following decision, the first one is our presidential candidate is Hakainde Hichilema. Next one we are going to call ourselves UPND alliance. We have reasons okay,” Milupi said. “So I am part of the group which is doing the right thing. That’s why I am saying we are doing the right thing because we have a leader who is delivering doing the right thing. So is it time now for me for example 2026 to come in and say it’s me who now must be president. No! As a unity we look at incumbency. Okay. It’s difficult after a president has done a term for the same party to say we now want to change.”
Milupi continued: “There are advantages to have someone in power because we judge that person by their record and so on. So for now the alliance has a president and going into 2026 if we continue the way we are going I think there will be no need for us to change a particular presidential candidate. After he has done his two terms then as alliance we will look at the various members we have and pick on the best to continue with the programmes.”
He said their focus now was to perform for the Zambian people by improving the economy and his duty was to support the President.
“I am senior enough to be able to sit down with the President and give counsel where it is required and my part of the government is to run in a manner that reflects our overall aspirations of government and the President,” Milupi said.
Milupi said the UPND alliance was very pleased with what has been achieved in the last one year on the promises made, saying the driving theme of the UPND was reuniting the country starting with the appointments into cabinet including from certain provinces where the alliance did not get members of parliament.
He said the rule of law had also been reintroduced in the country, and that he could not go to intercity for example, saying “it went to even stupid things where anyone wearing even a Manchester United shirt going into intercity and markets they risked their lives.”
Milupi said within the rule of law, the scourge that was affecting this country and had massively contributed towards the economic downturn was corruption, with what he described as massively overpriced procurements, non-delivery of goods that have been paid for and may other vices.
He said in the fight against corruption there were no scared cows, saying certain actions have been taken against serving officials in the UPND administration, giving a warning to the others.
On the economic front, Milupi said the country was in recession with a huge debt mountain arguing that because creditors have noticed that they were dealing with credible people now hence the $1.4 billion staff level agreement with the IMF.
He said this month the administration would be concluding discussions with IMF and all the creditors to see if some of the debt could be reschedule, forgiven and at a later stage, some of that debt would be financed at no interest rate, against the Eurobondsacquired under the PF administration which he likened to “Katondo street.”
Milupi argued that the benchmarks were already showing that the economy was moving in the right direction, including the reduced inflation rate, which he defended the high cost of living against, saying as opposed to the general increment of around 23 percent in the prices of goods under the PF, the rate of increase now was 9.7 percent.
“What we have done is slow down the rate at which these prices go up,” Milupi said, and that the Kwacha was now bullish against the major currencies.
He said there were overcrowded classrooms and the government has employed over 30,000 teachers and employed 11,276 health workers and pensioners were being paid.
Milupi said a factory jointly owned by Zambia and DRC would be opened up to make batteries for electric vehicles using the huge cobalt resources in the two countries.
He said the UPND administration has now passed a law to bring order in debt contraction, arguing that there was very little to point to what the over $19 billion foreign debt acquired under the PF administration has done for the country.
Milupi said he was in charge of infrastructure and the PF were boasting that they had recorded massive infrastructural progress during their time but “even in their so-called strongholds” they achieved little, citing Eastern Province where he said the only road done was from Luangwa to Mwami border post saying and that It was not done from the money borrowed but came in as a gift from the European Union (EU).
But he said nothing was done on the Chipata-Vubwi, Chipata-Chadiza, Chipata-Lundazi, Lundazi-Chama, Chipata-Mambwe, and in Muchinga Province, the main great North road from Serenje-Mpika, Mpika-Chinsali-Isoka-Nakonde was a disaster, including Isoka-Mafinga-Muyombe and the one done from Nakonde to Mbala was failing.
He said in Northern Province the road from Mpika to Kasama was terrible, and that there was nothing to show for the over $112 million spent on the Kasama university including the FTJ university in Luapula and that in that province people were shouting to him “road, road” when the Vice-President visited the area.
He said there was nothing to show on the money given to Zamtel and Zambia Railways, saying as a result a law has been put in place to control debt contraction as no administration will borrow without parliamentary approval.
He said the 2022 budget was a deficit budget as the total budget was K172 billion but the locally generated revenue was K99.8 billion, before the K22 billion supplementary budget and the country required more financing.
Milupi said the K99.8 was only sufficient to cater for two line projects in the budget, public emoluments and service of debt.
He said they will still need to borrow but the borrowing will be concessional from the multilateral institutions as “without borrowing, our budget cannot balance.”
He argued that the staff level agreement was a Zambian deal to restructure the economy, and was not being forced on Zambia including carrying out an audit to ensure there were no ghost workers.
But asked if that justified the unbundling of Zesco, or as some have argued to eventually sell it off, Milupi challenged this journalist to mention a parastatal which was giving the public a return on their investment.
He said Zesco had an asset base of $1.5 billion and should be giving around 15 percent to the treasury in dividends but that was not happening hence the need to restructure these parastatals.
Milupi said there was nothing to show for in the millions poured into Zambia Railways and with Zamtel he said the company was privatized during the MMD time but the PF administration of president Michael Sata re-nationalised the company and today its performance was being bested by private companies like MTN.
He said it could also not be argued that some privatisations have also yielded nothing in the past, saying leadership was what was required to ensure systems operated to their optimum.
Milupi said parastatals should operate in a manner that would not force Zambians through, the Ministry of Finance, to start refinancing inefficient companies at huge cost to the public, arguing that the priority should not be in owning something but the return that same asset was bringing to the public.
