By Merlyn Mwanza
Southern Province minister Cornelius Mweetwa says things are not as bad as some people are claiming, after he was confronted with questions from the interviewer and complaints by callers on the high cost of living.
And Mweetwa acknowledged that the monthly review in fuel prices has serious negatives in the management of business, but that there were also positives in terms of passing on the benefits to the consumers in the event the price pointed downwards on the international market.
Featuring on Radio Phoenix’s Let the People Talk this morning, Mweetwa acknowledged that things were not okay and that the economy was biting “but not as bad as naysayers want to project the image.”
He said the complaints were mostly coming from those people who were used to receiving things for free, something he later clarified as not referring to everybody, saying people must work in the same manner those in villages wake up in the morning to work.
“Things are not that bad,” Mweetwa said during a radio programme monitored by Daily Revelation, pointing to the recruitment of over 30,000 teachers and the 11,200 health workers to be announced.
He urged that people must not accept when someone asked them to go to the mountains to protest in the Sri Lankan fashion where people forced the President and Prime Minister of that country out of office for failing to address the economic problems.
Mweetwa said the country would have been in a worse off situation had the government not changed after the 2021 general elections.
He pointed to the inflation rate which had been reduced to single digits of 9.7 percent from around “24.8” under the PF. However, one of the callers confronted Mweetwa saying he should be ashamed of himself for speaking as if he did not live in this country.
The caller said Mweetwa was lying by saying that people who were complaining were those who were used to receiving free money, saying people have now resorted to using canters where he lives because the cost of minibuses had increased from K6 to K12 on account of the high cost of fuel after the UPND took over office.
He said the UPND found the fuel prices at K16 for diesel which was now going for K28 and petrol from K17 to over K26.95.
Mweetwa in response said he was stating facts that the government had mitigated the situation saying what was going for K50 today would have been going for K100 if people had retained the PF in government.
He said the issue of using canters spoke to the issues plaguing the people, but that President Hichilema has demonstrated good will by going 11 months without a salary and the current ministers were riding in the same old vehicles used by their PF predecessors.
“We are sacrificing too,” Mweetwa said, against the backdrop that ministers and their fellow members of parliament will see an increment of 17 percent in their salaries and sitting allowances from K1500 to K3000.
Speaking to that, Mweetwa said the increments were determined by the government. However, it is difficult to tell which government the minister is referring to when he is a senior member of the same government.
He said unlike in the past where those with critical voices had to look over their shoulders, people were now free in the country. But another caller wondered what sanity Mweetwa was talking about when UPND cadres unleashed thuggery on the people in Kafue.
But Mweetwa said genuine UPND members respect the directives of the President and that the ones who might be creating trouble were those who have mutated from one ruling party to the other in order to continue their mischief, promising that the matter would be looked into.
But another caller named Makondo praised government for the recruitment of teachers and that the price of junta per bottle had now reduced from K17 to K10 and the price of big mosi bottles had reduced from K22 – K15, something Mweetwa picked on wondering why people were not calling to say there has been a reduction in the price of mosi.
He argued that the UPND had not made life difficult but the prevailing situation on the international market with oil prices.
However, one of the first actions the administration of President Hichilema took was to increase fuel prices, months before it was even known that there would be a war in Ukraine.
But other callers told Mweetwa that the UPND was elected into office because of the promises they made, with an elderly man reinforcing the main theme from most callers about the high cost of living, saying where he was he did not even have food and that “insala kapondo.”
But Mweetwa said for the elderly people like the man who had called in, the government had increased the social cash transfer threshold by K300 per person.
He argued that the UPND were on time in delivering their promises, saying the President was walking the talk on his promises.
Mweetwa said that President Hichilema was a President “like no other” as he inherited a divided nation which he was working on uniting.
He said the President has “sanitised” the nation by returning freedoms to people and the rule of law.
But asked on information that the Southern Province police commissioner who received billionaire James Ndambo had been transferred to Lusaka, Mweetwa said he knew that the commissioner was in Lusaka but could not tell whether he was on transfer.
Mweetwa also said that the Kwacha was now stronger against other major convertible currencies, which was now trading around K16something to the US Dollar “against the run away situation of K22-23” when the UPND took over.
However, the Kwacha was trading at around K17 to the US Dollar at the time the UPND were taking over, although people then had questioned its rapid appreciate to that level from the highs of K23 during the election campaigns.
He acknowledged the negative effect of the monthly review in fuel prices as affecting businesses in terms of planning, but that the distortions emanated from shores far away from this country, but in the event the prices reduced, the benefit would be passed on to the consumers.
