PeP STATEMENT ON LACK OF DELIVERY OF RELIEF FOOD BY DMMU
Liberty House-Lusaka, 5th March 2024
1. As Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) we are concerned that the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) under the Office of the Vice President, has not yet commenced distribution of relief food across the country, in view of the ongoing devastating drought. It should be noted that under normal rainfall conditions, people would have started harvesting food from their fields by this time of the year. The fact that there is no food in their fields due to the drought, means that people have already started starving by now.
2. As Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP), we are fully aware of the fact that Government has a tendency to sleep on the job regarding emergencies, and only act at the last minute when lives have already been lost. This is what happened during the cholera epidemic where Government was asleep when the epidemic was first detected in October 2023 and only started to act in January 2024 when the epidemic had reached its peak and hundreds of innocent lives had been lost.
3. As Patriots for Economic Progress, we wish to warn Government not to sleep on the job this time around. The blood of any Zambian lives that will be lost due to hunger, will be on the hands of President Hakainde Hichilema who sold our maize reserves to DRC without any regard for the food security of the Zambian people.
4. We want to see activity on the part of DMMU in terms of distributing relief food in the next few days. The Zambian people deserve to be protected from the ravages of hunger by their Government. President Hakainde Hichilema needs to be reminded that this is not the time for long speeches and rhetoric. It is time for action in terms of actual delivery of relief food to all affected citizens.
May God Bless the People of Zambia and Our Ailing Nation.
ISSUED BY:
SEAN E. TEMBO (SET)
PARTY PRESIDENT
PATRIOTS FOR ECONOMIC PROGRESS (PeP)
LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
The Disaster is on crop failure and the Power deficit. Bearly 72 hours after the statement was made we want to spin the issue. The current crop would have been harvested in 3rd quarter of the year. Meaning that most affected farming households that were prudent would still have their crop from last harvest to keep them going.
2. The households that recieve assistance from the state are the most immediate cases that are affected. And given that the declaration was only made in the last 72hours. Assistance has to be sought and coordinated with multnational cooperating partners who may have resources to bolster our deficit capacity.
Lets be practicle and objective in our statements and give folks charged with these functions to work before we are critical and pass judgement. Empty statements devoid of facts just show childish and immature a person is when it comes to issues of the nation.
No wonder PEP will never get anywhere. Records are still being compiled how do you distribute to nowhere?