´Cornelius Mweetwa is making President Hichilema look bad´says ex agriculture minister Katambo

´Cornelius Mweetwa is making President Hichilema look bad´
…says ex agriculture minister Katambo

14.03.24

Chief government spokesman Cornelius Mweetwa has done a good job in making President Hakainde Hichilema look bad regarding the national drought emergency declaration and call for international relief says Michael Katambo, the former Minister of Agriculture in an interview aired live on KBNTV on Wednesday.

“At one point the President (HH) declares a national disaster on drought and a need for international help and immediately after that his spokesman Mr Mweetwa says the country is food secure and theres nothing to worry about it,” said hon. Katambo, the Masaiti lawmaker.
The former agriculture Minister said he is concerned that, “people will now not be able to know who is telling the truth between the information minister Mr. Mweetwa and President Hichilema.”

Featuring on ´The Big Hour´, the parliamentarian advised the UPND government to ´coordinate´ their statements on important issues such as ´national disasters´ so that Zambians are not confused in times of need.

Over the weekend, Mr Mweetwa bussed a media public relations team whom he exposed to some stacks of maize which he said was enough to see Zambia through an existing food crisis, contrary to the emergency declared by President Hichilema recently and an appeal for relief.
“We have enough food to last until the next season,” Mr Mweetwa said before camera´s following days of condemnation of the ruling party for selling about 1,4 million tons of emergency reserve stocks from the FRA left by the former administration of President Edgar Lungu, mostly to eastern African countries such as Kenya and the Congo DR.

“We still do not understand the logic behind selling reserve maize stocks that we built over a long period and years of planning just to start importing the same maize at a higher market price,” said Mr Katambo.

The former agriculture minister also advised the Hichilema government to start looking north to boost agriculture given the science that shows that rain patterns have moved north from the traditional southern province grain basket of Zambia.

“There´s no sense in investing in a dry and hot place where the crop will whittle, dry and die when there´s rain up north and fertile land to boost agriculture produce and reduce poverty as the plan was under President Edgar Lungu…it wasn’t discrimination what we did, it was science and expert advice we used to increase agro inputs north during our time,” said Mr Katambo.

Mr Katamboa also warned that it may take a long period of hunger and anguish before Zambia can return to becoming ´food sufficient´ after the Hichilema administration ignored the science and sold reserve stocks cheaply which it is buying back expensively.
Oxfam Zambia has warned that up to six million Zambians face starvation this year following Mr Hichilema´s decision to sell reserve food stocks that have led to long food ques and acute shortages.

The price of a 25kg bag of mealie meal is costing about K400 in Lusaka and more in rural areas, where it can be found as government imports expensive maize from east Africa where it sold it.

Hon. Katambo appealed to Mr Hichilema to follow the advice of experts in future as he tries to correct the current ills but warned that ´a hungry man is an angry man´ and that a country without food security lacks ´national security.´

He also cautioned Mr Mweetwa to tame his tongue and stop contradicting President Hichilema in issues such as national disasters.

Source: KBNTV