By Patson Chilemba
Infrastructure minister Charles Milupi says his ministry has taken it upon itself to ensure that the road where President Hakainde Hichilema resides is tarred, and that plans to do that are already underway with the first bids having been rejected, and now “redoing” the process.
And Milupi said he wonders that former alliance member and new Zambia Must Prosper party leader Kelvin Bwalya Fube, is raising the issue of vision with regards the UPND when he was instrumental in bringing to power a man who said he had no vision, and even waking up judges in the middle of the night.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Milupi was asked on the moves to upgrade the gravel road where President Hichilema’s New Kasama house, known as community house, is situated to bituminous standards.
Responding, Milupi said: “Of course he is not the only one on that road. He’s not the only one on that road. And I know that first of all we were discriminated against, he’s not the only one who suffered…even when these people were doing roads, there are these roads which were left out. So we are working on that.”
He said the road will be done within the prudent and fiscal discipline, saying “we evaluated some offers and we are not happy with what we saw.”
“We are doing that (working in the road), we are on top of it,” Milupi said.
Asked when the road will be worked on, Milupi said they were already moving in that direction but they will have to follow processes, saying they were dealing with a President “who was not giving instructions” when others would have said “(build the road) today.”
“But that road we need to do it. I have not received any instruction from him to do it. It’s us who have put it in our plan,” Milupi said, but that processes and procedures will be followed. “So we have bids. People put in bids.”
He said the first bids were not welcomed and therefore they are redoing the process to make sure they followed the three criteria of public procurement on projects, which should be at the right price, right quality and delivered on time, adding that no one will be allowed to push any price just because the President resides on that road.
And asked what he made of the statement from Fube whom they served together in the alliance with, who yesterday charged that the UPND has no clear philosophy nor platform for job creation, and that they do not even have a clear youth agenda or policy, including lacking a clear leadership strategy as everything revolves around one man, Milupi said it depends on why Fube joined the alliance, saying “was it to project himself?”
He said he has been chairperson of the alliance since 2015, having started just the two of them with President Hichilema before they were joined by the others, including Dr Nevers Mumba, late Mike Mulongoti and others including others who joined and left such as Andyford Banda, Sean Tembo and Chishimba Kambwili.
He said Fube joined the alliance “one or two weeks” before nominations, asking “So at the time he was joining us did we have a vision?”
Milupi wondered how Fube joined them if they did not have a vision, and that he facilitated the election of someone who said he had no vision.
“People must be careful what they say because people will go back to their history. He facilitated someone by waking up judges at night and so on to become leader and then president of this country who clearly said he had no vision. So now the vision is now important?” Milupi asked, saying in any case the UPND has a vision which he said they are actualising through the employment of over 30,000 teachers and 11,200 health workers.
He said with the “time bomb of youth unemployment”, CDF has been increased substantially with people being encouraged to form cooperatives, and that country was recording negative GDP growth but now the economy was growing at 3.5 percent.
He said the people Fube put in power “because he calls himself a king maker” are the ones who created the insurmountable debt for which the UPND administration is engaging creditors.
He said the UPND were paying retirees who were everyday protesting.
Milupi said routes into other countries were being opened to have PPP roads to other countries with plans to increase copper production to over 3 million tones with added incentives for jobs.
He said it was questionable the reasons why Fube joined the alliance, saying may be he wants to be at the top, something he said Fube was rejected for in PF.
Milupi said Fube had now created his own party thinking he would get to the top, but that many people create parties, with some having been told that by prophets “that they would be president in 2021” but were nowhere to be seen, saying politics was not easy.
He said people were laughing at “us for having been in the opposition for 23 years” but argued that those years gave experience for the Zambian people to understand who they were.
Milupi said the people Fube put in power were aligned with lawlessness where some people could not even be allowed in markets and bus stations.
He said some people were of the desire that they would benefit when the UPND came to power but that that was not who they were.
Milupi said the rule of law had ensured that even his own children and family members were left out on the employment of teachers and health workers, and that Fube must tell the country about his own philosophy.
He further said unlike the people Fube put in power, who, he said went on a reckless borrowing spree through Eurobonds, the UPND administration was coming up with a law to ensure that loans acquired were approved by parliament to protect the country’s resources.
