OPPOSITION LEADER ACCUSES UPND OF DOWN PLAYING CATHOLIC BISHOPS’ CONCERNS
New Heritage Party President, Chishala Kateka, has accused government of not taking seriously various issues raised by Catholic Bishops in a recent statement document addressed to them.
The communique by the Bishops raised concerns on a range of issues which include observed rise in poverty levels, high cost of living, moral decay and the fight against corruption.
Kateka says Government has missed a golden opportunity to articulate its position on the pertinent issues raised, noting that they chose to sound clever in their responses.
She takes that instead of addressing the issue of rising poverty levels in the country, their response was that since they came into office over a year ago, inflation has climbed down from double to single digit and the CDF is now at K28.3 million per constituency.
Kateka says the Catholic Bishops know that inflation has ‘climbed’ down but in spite of that, they still posed the question implying that regardless of the figure of inflation, the cost of living is still very high.
She also accused government of glossing over issues like tribalism and regionalism, as well as the fight against corruption.
Kateka has since demanded that Government come back to the people and provide adequate responses to the issues raised in Pastoral Letter.
She has further commended the Catholic Bishops for their State of the Nation Statement, calling on other civil society organizations to emulate the example of speaking primarily for the Zambian people.