HH CONFERS WITH THE CLERGY IN MONGU AFTER ATTENDING KUOMBOKA
TAKE-AWAYS :
Summary by Mark Simuuwe :
HH confers with the Clergy from different churches who included among others , Catholic Church ( Mongu Diocese), Bread of Life , UCZ , SDA , All Pentecostal churches in Mongu , Wesleyan Church , Apostolic church etc .
Implores them to promote unity in the country , and stressed the following;
1. We have achieved Unity in diversity in which all citizens must be treated the same way ; under the previous leadership , people could go to intercity and be beaten accusing them of being HH supporters but not anymore ;
2. Law and order is an important achievement for us ; because human beings particularly Zambians need to be free and protected .
3. Freedom for citizens is an achievement; “ 10 days before elections, I went to Chingola then decided to go worship with the Catholic Church – I was greeted with a bullet who ch took off the handle of the door where I was sitted … today we do not experience such things . We held the Kuomboka yesterday without any teargas by police;
4. We were in a debt crisis when. We took over leadership and we have worked on it by restructuring it ; we have to deal with the West and the East to help us restructure the debt . Without debt restructuring , Zambia was going to pay $7.8 billion in 10 years but with debt restructuring we have to pay $750 million only in 10 years .
We have reduced our debt quantum to between 35-45 % .
5. We have given you context – so no one should mislead others on the debt .
6. Reminded the clergy after demonstrating a concoction of government officials belonging to the UPND government who were asked to tell the audience about the church they go to who composed of ( Catholics , SDAs , Pentecostals , Apostolics , Jehovah’s witnesses ) that these people in government are your own church members ; He says at times some people speak as though government officials from another world ;
7. He stressed that NAPSA pensions has no queues anymore because government has introduced many reliefs on pensions such as partial withdrawal .
8. He also dismissed assertions that NAPSA is bankrupt and stated that NAPSA now has a new model of public private partnerships which has boosted NAPSA capacity to do business and generate more money .
He says PF wanted to give Lusaka- Ndola dual carriage way at $1.3 billion but UPND is now doing it at $500 a per kilometer. He says UPND is doing durable roads not the costly poor quality roads we witnessed.
9. We shall have the first ever industrial solar plant to produce 3000 jobs . Never in the history of western province have you ever witnessed and industry to produce 3000 jobs .
10. “Shaft 28 in Luanshya is back : when I went to China I lobbied and President Xi Jingping accepted and we have investors in Luanshya today “, says HH .
11. “ If you go to Kitwe and Mufulira , there is now money in Kitwe and Mufulira because of the mines that are coming back . We now have the council in Kitwe paying Retirees from the council because they have received money “.
12. “We need jobs in Western Province- if we don’t allow development in western province , we shall have the province remaining behind “.
13. “This province elected me as Zambia’s president. The people here voted for me so this is Zambia . We must be proud . Free education is here ! They said where will HH find the money to provide free education, I knew where to find money and this free education is today a reality “.
14. “We have managed to attract $1.5 billion dollars in Northwestern and now we are going to have the biggest nickel mine in Africa there . “
15. “Three months ago , we signed that they are bringing an additional investment of $2 billion in Lumwana . You will soon the fruits very soon there as well . “
16. Skills training – children who never went to school are now training as Capenters , Metal fabricators etc
17. We now see nurses , teachers being employed from every province . “ I make sure that I ask my colleagues to make sure the all the provinces are involved in the recruitment process .”
18. We can go on and on but I wish to emphasize that we should be engaging more often with the clergy !
19. We shall work with the church to make Zambia a better place for our people . All churches that do social programmes … will work with us as we address even the drought issue so that we can feed our people !
20. We must use this drought to serve our people even those in remotest places across the country. “
21. “We have brought facilities for irrigation and we need to work together to ensure our poeople have food . We know that the clergy know the communities even better. “
Conclusions:
There are many more things we have done which we can not sum up here in one single meeting .
“I will be coming back soon to launch the Power Project , Luanginga bridge , and also the hospital that I am building where I was arrested along Limulunga road .” This project is privately funded as my gift to the people around there who got affected when I was arrested at the same spot . Many knew I was on the death list . “
“. When I come we shall chat again . Wisdom comes from God . The rest will fall in place when God is with us . I agree that the Government and the church must work together . Last week , I signed a law which shall allow stakeholders like yourselves to be part of the CDF management “, says HH .
“ on the idea of pointing fingers at the PF , yes we must focus on building on what has been done but we shall point fingers at them to return what they stole from the people of Zambia so that we use it to benefit the people “ .
“ I agree with the message from the Clergy that we must trust in the Lord . God works through us . We have never seen this kind of drought but God shall be with us as we look at the alternatives to help our people “.
