Cornelius Mweetwa

PF MPS MUST SHUT UP OR WE WILL ARREST THEM

WE’VE DOSSIERS AGAINST PF MPS

…they shouldn’t talk loudest –

By Kombe Mataka

UPND spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa says PF members of parliament should not talk the loudest because there are dossiers against them.
Mweetwa, who is also Southern Province minister, told The Mast that it was clear the PF were taking their freedom of speech to hold briefings to disparage and speak falsehoods against the
government.


“Those characters who had a briefing on Friday, the PF MPs, I think those guys are abusing the freedom that they are enjoying to begin to
disparage and speak falsehoods against the new dawn government. How do they expect that the FIC (Financial Intelligence Centre Report) to begin to name people who were not presiding over public affairs? They (PF) are the ones who were presiding over public affairs. And I would like to
caution some of those people. They are the ones who have taken us to where we are. The Ministry of Local Government is suffering, looking for money to pay local contractors that got contracts and did nothing and the majority of them being former ministers. Some of them are still MPS in parliament,” Mweetwa said. “We are very expectant that those that have been named in the [FIC] report will be prosecuted so that people know the extent to which resources were abused by the PF government who say they don’t want us to name them when we are discussing the governance of this country. Let them not talk loudest. I have been hoeing some dossiers against them silently but if I want to begin this political hullabaloo now, they should know that I am armed to the teeth for them. So let them not take for granted the fact that they are able to
speak without harassment in the manner that they never used to allow others to do.”
At a briefing held by PF members of parliament at Parliament on Friday, PF chief whip Stephen Kampyongo alleged that the FIC was targeting only those that served in PF.

Lukashya PF member of parliament George Chisanga, who is alse the party legal affairs chairperson, demanded that the fight against corruption be objective and done in adherence to the rule of law.

Chisanga regretted that the fight against corruption currently has been reduced to a chase against the PF which is undermining it.
The MPs alleged that a tender for various projects worth US $100 million in North Western, Southern and Western Province had been awarded through single sourcing.


But Mweetwa said the contract in question was originated by the PF before elections.

“I mean I couldn’t believe. What is wrong with these colleagues? The issue of $100 million worth of projects in Southern, North Western, and Western Province, that project was initiated by the Patriotic Front before the general elections. Now that project has been rejected by the new dawn administration. The President has given a big no and you as journalists can find out from the Ministry of Finance. This is in public domain. There is no information to be hiding. Good
governance entails transparency and accountability,” he said. “The President said, ‘we cannot begin projects worth this amount of
money at a time like this one’. Prefabricated structures, no! They began a project that we said no to and they want to accuse us of corruption
and this is not the only project that the President has said not to. You are aware that not less than seven projects were taken to parliament to be able to be halted such as Luapula University because of
irregularities. I think let them find better things to do.”


Meanwhile, Mweetwa said the high price of fuel was a matter that the UPND had little control over.
“The increase of fuel is as a result of factors that are external for which as a country we have got no control whatsoever. Fuel has not been increased in Zambia, it has been increased by the producers. When you look at our current state of treasury, it is depleted. We cannot cushion the price of fuel. The only other available option is to go to the international market to borrow. Now how can you borrow to expend on a subsidy instead of investment? We feel it is not prudent to go out
there to borrow to cushion fuel prices when we are failing to pay the international debt. What the previous administration did was to come up with statutory instrument to wave VAT (Value Added Tax), to wave import duty and another tax to facilitate the elections to be overseen with a fuel price that is not escalated ,” said Mweetwa. “This government has extended that statutory instrument so that the measures that were put in place to mitigate price hikes are maintained. If we had removed them, you would then fault us.

So in so far as regulatory framework is concerned to mitigate against an escalated fuel price, we have maintained those wavers but because the increase of fuel out there is something out of our control, even when our inflation is nosediving from above 20 per cent in September last year to 9.7 now under a year you are seeing that value is not translating much in monetary terms for commodity prices because of the external factors. What is important for Zambians by tackling inflation it means the speed at which commodity prices are escalating has been halted by 50 per cent and that is progress.

We are confident that once fuel prices on the market stabilise, we expect that the kwacha, our currency will get its value. And that is the time people will appreciate having a low inflation rate. Zambia is among the few countries in the world that has managed to hold back the inflation rate. If it were not for fuel price hikes, Zambians would have been smiling that they are buying more in a K100 than they were previously able to.”

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