UPND shouldn’t be allowed to govern – Kambwili

THE UPND should not be allowed to govern, they will just concentrate on rearing animals, says chief government spokesperson Chishimba Kambwili. Debating a motion to restructure Cabinet ministries on Thursday evening, Kambwili said it would be wrong to allow UPND to govern.

“I am glad that from within UPND, there are people with independent minds like the last speaker (Highvie Hamududu) who is even able to tell the people of Zambia that the depreciation of the kwacha is not caused by President Edgar Lungu and the PF, but the lack of planning from the past; that we never diversified,” Kambwili said. “But some presidents were on the radio yesterday [Wednesday] from the same party saying the kwacha depreciation is because of Edgar Lungu. The president of the UPND in particular was on Millennium Radio yesterday[Wednesday] lambasting PF and Edgar Lungu that we have failed lamentably and the kwacha [depreciation] is as a result of our poor management.

But here is a clever MP from the UPND telling us that ‘no, it’s not you, it’s the past which had no proper planning!’ Are these the people you want to give the country so that they concentrate on animals only and agriculture? We really have to be very careful! Picking up only one ministry that concerns their area, this is unfair! The UPND will only accept to split the ministry of agriculture and livestock and for known reasons!” He accused the UPND of lacking consistency in the manner it was criticising government. “The UPND in particular has been saying ‘we want a new constitution approved’.

Under the new constitution, you want to increase members of parliament to 179; you want to appoint ministers outside Parliament, you want to create provincial parliaments, which one is a bloated government, increasing Cabinet by five ministers or all those issues? Let us be consistent,” Kambwili said. “What we are doing is better for the economy; there is no way you can say you don’t care about splitting the Ministry of Energy and Ministry of Mines, when we have so many problems. Are you telling us you don’t care about the people who live on the Copperbelt? You don’t care about the people in North-Western where there are mines, you only want to care about livestock, let us be very careful with the way we make pronouncements and think about things.

I am losing miners in Luanshya Mine; you think I will be happy to hear such kind of statements? It’s unfair!” He said it was hypocritical for the UPND to claim that the PF was appointing people that were involved in corruption. “We are just from Lubansenshi, one of the candidates you fielded was out of corruption; another one from Lukulu East, seated there, was from corruption so what are we talking about? You are being inconsistent; let us be consistent with what we do…,” said Kambwili. But Speaker of the National Assembly Dr Patrick Matibini censured Kambwili. “Let’s not debate ourselves; we have a very specific motion here! Let’s try as far as possible to limit ourselves to the motion,” said Speaker Matibini.

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