Minister of Youth, Sport and Art Elvis Chishala Nkandu says Patriotic Front (PF) officials must remain quiet on governance matters because they left behind many problems that are being fixed by the UPND administration.
Featuring on ZNBC Television’s Sunday Interview, Mr. Nkandu said the PF left Government last August without fulfilling many promises that included bettering the nation in their first 90 days in office.
The UPND Kaputa Member of Parliament said the Zambian people should find solace in the New Dawn Government that has started fixing the several problems left by the PF regime.
Mr. Nkandu also made reference to accusations recently leveled against the PF Government that it failed to honour the promise of building houses to members of the 2012 Africa Cup winning Chipolopolo squad.
The Minister of Youth, Sport and Art added that he is also aware that the PF Government did not deliver a house promised to boxing champion Catherine Phiri.
Mr. Nkandu further told Zambians to hold the UPND Government accountable for the promises made after five years saying the New Dawn administration has set a base for national development.
“Franklyn (Tembo, the presenter) and the viewers out there, what do you expect from the Patriotic Front? It is a promise that they could not fulfill. I don’t want to go through those promises. There were promises of 90 days. There were a lot of promises made by PF so I was not amazed when I heard from some sports men who came to my office that when they won the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations they were promised houses each, also promised some funds, the prize money which was not given to them. We also come to the issue of Catherine Phiri when she won that bantamweight world fight, she was promised a house. All these promises have never materialized,” he said.
“You see, this is the reason why to some extent I always say that if there is a political party that would remain mute, very quiet is the Patriotic Front because they have left a lot of issues for us to settle. But you know something that is comforting us and the Zambian people out there is that we promised that we are coming to fix. So obviously these are some of the corrections that we will make. Number one, on Catherine Phiri, I can assure you that we as Government have started talking, we may not have the money, NAPSA, there are a lot of institutions that we have talked to so that we can actualize and give a house to Catherine Phiri. So as Government we are going to make sure we pursue this issue to its logical conclusion so that Catherine is given to what is due to her because she was promised,” Mr. Nkandu said.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nkandu has declared that he is game after settling down in the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Art.
“We have settled in now because I think for the past three months we have been looking at how the ministry operates, and what we can do for our people. You know my ministry is more like it has three ministries in one because sports are a ministry on its own. When you get to the youth department, it is a very huge department itself and when you talk about art it is the same,” he said.
“Obviously it has taken me some time to acclimatize to all these departments, especially that we are having a new one which we are about to unveil our director. You are aware that where it was, it was sitting under the department of culture so for us we have given it (art) a department so that we can improve on art itself. I think we have settled now, now we are able to know what we can give out to our people. What we can roll out to our citizens. I think we are game now,” Mr. Nkandu said.