By Daily Revelation Reporter
FDD leader Edith Nawakwi says Eastern Province minister Peter Phiri is just as rigidly insensitive as his boss for boasting that people queue to buy his mealie-meal going for the “cheaper” K300.
And Nawakwi says the social tensions in the country have been caused by the collusion of President Hichilema and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Speaking to Daily Revelation, Nawakwi said instead of showing leadership in the fight against cholera, President Hichilema went to herd cattle.
She said the same thing happened when there was a mine accident in Chingola, saying the President flew to Dubai and left people trapped underground.
“Instead of showing leadership, the man is herding cattle while people are dying. When we lost our children in Chingola, you know the mine issue, the man was in Dubai, He was leaving, people are dying. He was flying to Dubai. He is herding cows and people are dying here,” Nawakwi said. “There is no medicine, there is no chlorine, no water. He is completely insensitive. I have never in my lifetime come across a man calling themselves a leader who is so rigidly insensitive.”
She said Eastern Province minister Peter Phiri was an employee of President Hichilema and was doing exactly what his boss was doing.
Phiri recently told Daily Revelation that people were queuing up for his mealie meal at the wife’s shop because it was cheaper at K300.
But Nawakwi said Phiri was a lieutenant of President Hichilema
“What is the difference from his boss herding cattle while people are dying? He goes to Dubai and leaves the children dying being retrieved in Chingola. He comes back, he then proceeds for a holiday herding cattle. Have you ever seen that when we had our First Republic? Would KK (Kenneth Kaunda) actually leave people dying at the Mufulira disaster and go to Dubai? Would he do that? He used to camp there in Mufulira with his white handkerchief,” she said. “This is a man is stonily insensitive so when you have a Herod, his lieutenants as I have said will be Peter Phiri, Kakubo or those people who have no direction.”
Nawakwi has urged the UPND to ask how others before them tackled the cholera issue saying the pandemic has broken before and was well managed.
She said during the time she was minister, the police and army were on the streets helping to clean, but that the police now are guarding the President’s cattle on her taxes.
Nawakwi accused the president of going on holiday and got a battalion of policemen to guard his cattle.
“Even when he leaves the farm, the police are guarding his cattle. He is the worst public abuser that this Republic has had for many years. Police instead of helping us on the street, help us with sanitation, they are guarding his cattle, his most treasured asset in the country and not the 20 million Zambians,” she said.
And Nawakwi further said Phiri and former foreign affairs minister Stanley Kakubo were doing what the President was doing.
“At this point, when you talk to me about Peter, Kakubo, these are his lieutenants, they’re doing what he himself can do. What is the difference between Peter Phiri as minister selling mealie-meal and Kakubo using his office, using a platform of his office …doing double transactions on one transaction and the boss says no this is a private business deal from a public person?” she asked.
Meanwhile, the opposition leader said the international community have now come to their realisation that their project in Zambia had flopped like cow dung and that there was no solution because the governor of the Central Bank Dr Denny Kalyalya and minister of finance Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane, were just telling Zambians theories which do not work.
She said there was no way in the life of the nation the government could solve a structural problem with a monetary solution.
“It will never happen. We have been robbed of money from mines which we had started to collect. Before PF left, we would collect a billion dollars of taxes from the mines. Hakainde’s return from mines is K300 million,” she said.
Nawakwi said the President didn’t come to fix anything, he came to fix Zambians.
Nawakwi said the IMF wherever they poke their nose or step their feet, their end product is usually a social crisis.
She said when President Hichilema became President, she gave him a friendly warning
“I suggested at the time that they could go ahead and do what they were thinking they could achieve with the IMF, but with the advice of experience, I suggested that we have a parallel programme which would be locally brewed. In fact the word I used was we need a programme which is ‘locally brewed’ like our chibuku,” said Nawakwi.
