PF is the fastest melting party in Africa

PF is the fastest melting party in Africa; it’s like butter put on the tarmac in October, says Miles Sampa. And Sampa says “if PF still thinks I am not a factor in politics, we will compare notes after August 11.” Speaking in a special interview on Hot FM radio broadcast from his Kabulonga residence in Lusaka yesterday, the Democratic Front leader and Matero member of parliament said the ruling party was feeling the heat following his departure. “PF is the fastest melting party in Africa; it’s like butter put on the tarmac in October. It’s melting really quickly. We are getting defectors countrywide non-stop. As for Matero, that’s my beloved place. It is the centre of ‘Don’t Kubeba’ and so nobody can stand up and speak on behalf of Matero,” Sampa said. “By the way, Bob Marley sang that ‘You can fool some people sometimes but you can’t fool all the people all the time’. They bus in people and fool some people on ZNBC, [saying] they are having big rallies…They can’t fool all the people all the time.” He also said Zambia now needs an economic doctor to lead the government that will help to liberate citizens from economic slavery. “All Zambians are enslaved economically. The vision of the PF in 2011 was to come and empower Zambians but they have now veered away, by all means, 360 degrees. Look at the PF! You can just see who is in charge; just see which faces are there. [They have] 360 degrees veered away from that vision we had as PF with the late president [Michael Sata]. There is now a ‘new vision’ and that vision I don’t recognise it and that is the vision I have dissociated myself from. What this country needs now is an economic doctor, a financial doctor that will come and resolve the problems. The PF has exhibited that they don’t have the capacity, otherwise the exchange rate wouldn’t have gone to where it is. How do you lose the exchange rate by 100 per cent within a few months? Inflation wouldn’t have moved from a single digit to 20 per cent,” Sampa said. The former commerce deputy minister further complained that he felt bitter to see Zambia’s economy deteriorating from “level A to level X”. “What makes me bitter is that after one year, the economy of Zambia has gone from level A to level X in terms of being negative. Everything has gone negative; prices have gone up, [the] exchange rate, kwacha yalipena, imitengo naiya pamulu (the kwacha has gone mad, prices have gone up). Yes, I’m bitter because people have no money, people have no food. So, I’m bitter on behalf of Zambians,” Sampa lamented, “The buck stops with the President of Zambia. That’s why we ask for these positions. If Zambia is doing well, we commend the President, [and] if there is hunger in Zambia, there is no electricity, there is no this and that, we blame the President because he is the leader.” He said President Lungu should not expect Zambians to be happy with the explanation that the challenges are global. “You ask ‘Is it Zambia alone?’ I don’t care about other countries; I care about Zambia [because] I’m a voter here and so, I need answers from the President on what is going on. When you say it is happening outside Zambia, well, global problems have always been there but that’s what leadership is all about; you plan and safeguard any perceived negative incoming economic issues,” Sampa said. And Sampa said a deputy minister was irrelevant in the management of the country. “A deputy minister is irrelevant in the management of a country because you just sit and decisions are made by Cabinet. So, I was in a bus and where it was going, it wasn’t me driving it. If anything, I was just outside the bus gonzelaling (dangling) because it is the ministers inside the bus who were driving. So, what do I do? I jump off and say Zambians need to go this side [because] that’s where there is economic liberation and I thought the government and the party were driving the country in a wrong direction. That’s why I [left],” he explained. Meanwhile, Sampa said PF was feeling the heat after his resignation. “First of all, it was themselves who were saying ‘Resign, resign’ and sending thugs on me and threatening my life, so I responded to their request and their wish; I resigned and I formed my own party. The same people start jumping up and down and everyone commenting, from the topmost to all the leaders; every day they want to talk about me. They are feeling the heat. So whatever they are saying, I think we should compare the notes on the 11th of August,” he said. And Sampa expressed disappointment at the failure by President Edgar Lungu to condemn the violence from his party cadres. “I mean, the way our lives were put at risk with all those tourists on a commercial plane as if it’s Al Shabaab or in Burundi where you have people with machetes and guns running around the runway, that has not been condemned,” said Sampa. “The PF reminds me of MMD in 2011; they became very violent and intimidating. That is what is happening to the PF, very violent, intimidating, stressed, but when the day comes on 11th August, the Zambian people will do a ‘Don’t Kubeba’ part two.”

THE POST