Former Vice-President Enoch Kavindele says the current drought should not be politicised or indeed be blamed on the UPND government as it is a natural calamity.
President Hakainde Hichilema last month declared the country’s debilitating drought, attributed to the El Nino weather pattern, a national disaster and emergency.
“We are saying the crop has failed, not because UPND is in power, this is beyond us, there is drought in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and parts of Angola,” he said in an interview.
“Drought is all over.” Mr Kavindele, who was Vice-President under Levy Mwanawasa when the country also experienced another drought in the early 2000’s, noted that this is not a new experience for the country.
“This happened also in 1991, we had to bring in maize from Brazil, that was yellow maize, indeed,” he said.
“Zambians are not used to eating yellow maize, so they complained, but it was certainly the right thing to do.”
Mr Kavindele said there is need to learn lessons from the current difficult situation in terms of utilising irrigation.
“And I’m very happy that the President [Hakainde Hichilema] has said that we have to improve our irrigation system,” he said.
DON’T POLITICISE DROUGHT – KAVINDELE
Former Vice-President Enoch Kavindele says the current drought should not be politicised or indeed be blamed on the UPND government as it is a natural calamity.
President Hakainde Hichilema last month declared the country’s debilitating drought, attributed to the El Nino weather pattern, a national disaster and emergency.
“We are saying the crop has failed, not because UPND is in power, this is beyond us, there is drought in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa and parts of Angola,” he said in an interview.
“Drought is all over.” Mr Kavindele, who was Vice-President under Levy Mwanawasa when the country also experienced another drought in the early 2000’s, noted that this is not a new experience for the country.
“This happened also in 1991, we had to bring in maize from Brazil, that was yellow maize, indeed,” he said.
“Zambians are not used to eating yellow maize, so they complained, but it was certainly the right thing to do.”
Mr Kavindele said there is need to learn lessons from the current difficult situation in terms of utilising irrigation.
“And I’m very happy that the President [Hakainde Hichilema] has said that we have to improve our irrigation system,” he said.-Zambia Daily Mail
Long live Hon. Kavindele and all other former veep. We feel very complete whenever we see you together at state functions. Kudos to you.
Whether you like it or not, hunger will still be blamed on HH and the UPND. They found huge maize reserves which they exported to DRC, Kenya and Tanzania. Now that they depleted maize stocks and hunger is looming, they decide to buy back the same maize from Tanzania at a higher price.The maize they exported was heavily subsidized by GRZ as it was grown under FISP. The UPND will be blamed for their political and economic buffonery and skulldudgery over the manner they are treating citizens on the issue of the maize staple. We have humans with no brains in the leadership of our country.
How the ruling party responds to natural calamities IS politics though the calamity cannot be blamed on the ruling party.
Ultimately, natural calamities are politics and we cannot ran away from that. So how the UPND government responds to this drought situation will make or break them.
We had a similar case when MMD came into power in 1991. There was a drought in 1991/92 though not as severe as the current one. Dr. Guy Scott was the Minister of Agriculture and Mr. Ronald Penza was the Minister of Finance. The MMD government’s response was so good the situation was contained without any loss of life. We survived on imported yellow maize and I have since come to love yellow maize nshima and grow my own for domestic consumption.
Ba Kavindele, from fine tunning to funny tunning. The technology to predict changes in weather patterns and climate has improved drastically from the time of Mwanawasa (may his soul rest in peace). Anyone who cared to listen and comprehend what the Meteorologists were telling as far back as October last year knew that we were going to have a drought especially in the Southern half of the country. We can not be so naive by refusing to think and act on what professionals were telling us. We instead went for political expediency and sold most of the maize that were kept as strategic reserves. And you want people to sit back and clap for mediocrity!