By Daily Revelation Correspondent
Citizens First (CF) leader Harry Kalaba says the “thieves” in Tonse and those in UPND are pointing at each other, accusing the others of being thieves, saying it takes a thief to know a thief.
And Kalaba has denounced the violence by UPND cadres against NRPUP presidential candidate Brian Mundubile and his campaign team in Western Province, saying the same has no place in this country.
Appearing on a radio Icengelo programme in Kitwe today, Kalaba said thieves knew each other well.
“And then those (in Tonse) are calling UPND thieves and UPND is calling PF thieves. Now it means both are thieves, because it takes a thief to catch a thief,” Kalaba said. “Where Zambia has reached we need the country to heal the divide.”
Kalaba explained that he left the PF after realising that his friends in Tonse were veering from late Republican president and PF founder Michael Sata’s vision for the party and country.
He said his friends started prioritising giving themselves public contracts at the expense of serving the public.
“Most of my friends I know in PF loved contacts; road contracts they were there, electricity contracts they were there, all sorts of contracts,” Kalaba said. “I said when I was given a ministerial position it was for the purpose of serving the Zambian people. So you can’t today tell me why I have not joined them.”
He added that he could have found himself in confusion if he had joined Tonse, given the happenings in that alliance where the president of a Tonse-aligned party, Resolute Party’s Martin Phiri, decided to endorse President Hakainde Hichilema.
“Surely, is HH even worth being a president of the country, and you want him to continue?” Kalaba asked. “You can just see the confusion. Did you want me to go into that confusion?”
And Kalaba said he would handle student bursaries and allowances in a holistic manner by extending the facilities to all universities and colleges, including Levy Mwanawasa Medical University, Evelyn Hone College, Nkrumah University, among others, than just restricting the same to UNZA and CBU.
On the high electricity tariffs and connection fees, Kalaba said he would speed up the construction of the nuclear power power he signed for when he was Foreign Affairs minister, and would also focus on constructing hydro-power plants in rainbelt areas of the north.
He promised to suspend connection fees for 6 months with the government taking up the cost. He said the same would be recovered by deducting a little amount from the electricity units that benefiting customers would buy, so that they did not feel the pain of the cost.
Kalaba argued that employing nurses and teachers was not creating jobs as that is something all the administrations have done before. He argued that employment creation involved adding value through industrialisation.
He promised to re-open Kafironda in Mufulira as the mines were now importing explosives from outside the country.
Kalaba said Zambians elected an educated man who closed Indeni and the country was now importing bitumen.
Kalaba said he would reintroduce MEMACO to enable the mines contribute effectively towards the socio and economic life of the Copperbelt, including in areas of education.
He said he was driving through dusty roads in Kitwe as if the country did not have the copper and emerald wealth.
Kalaba said President Hichilema promised Zambians that Vedanta would never come back yet today they were the ones who had been given back the Konkola Copper Mines.
He said the country had also never seen the K50 mealie-meal bags President Hichilema promised, including the K250 fertilizer price.
Kalaba accused the President of having returned to the Copperbelt with more “lies” on CDF, stressing that if constituencies were receiving K40 million each, there was no way the Kitwe Central hospital and Ndola Central hospitals would lack drugs.
He said suicide cases which were previously taboo had now become too common on the Copperbelt because of poor leadership in the country.
Kalaba finished off his day of campaigning with a radio programme following his roadshows in the markets and compounds of Kitwe.
