KATEKA OPPOSES VISA WAIVER ON NORTH AMERICA, ASIA AND GULF REGION
New Heritage Party President, Chishala Kateka, says the recent move by government to waiver off VISA requirements to Zambia exclusively to North America, Asia and the Gulf Region, effective 2nd November, 2022, is an act of Self-hate and Anti-Pan Africanism.
Kateka notes that no single African country has been accorded the privilege of waiving off VISA requirements, an act she relates to having an inferiority complex and a threat to security.
She also points out that the gesture is one sided as Zambians have not being offered similar privileges by the same countries, a breach of reciprocity to the normal rule of the thumb in international relations.
Kateka questions why government has decided to subsidize foreign countries with local citizens’ hard earned money and at great security risk.
She however says that the move is not surprising, alleging that the UPND government are puppets of the former colonial masters who are the real intended beneficiaries of such policies.
Kateka states that the new pronouncement is in line with other government policies aimed at giving foreigners an advantage, such as tax holidays for foreign mining and other entities affiliated to the UPND neo-colonial link.
She accuses government of failing to honour several African treaties relating to intra-continental trade and the free movement of persons of African nationality within the boundaries, in preference to foreigners.
Kateka says this goes against principles of founding father, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, who was on 2nd November, 2022, awarded by the African Union as an Icon of the African struggle for independence and the establishment of the Organization of African Unity.