🇿🇲 MORNING WIRE | ‘Our Reserves are Our Stomachs’ — Mundubile Courts Nyimba
Brian Mundubile’s Nyimba District campaign stop came with music, dust, rural energy and a direct assault on the UPND’s economic story.
At Nyimba East Primary School Grounds on Wednesday, imported musicians and campaign entertainers warmed up the crowd before Mundubile, speaking in his deep and fast-moving delivery, told voters that Zambia’s economic recovery must be judged by food, jobs and farmer incomes; not by foreign reserves alone.
“Reserve yatu nipa mimba. The UPND reserves are figures,” Mundubile said. “Before we start speaking big English like inflation and reserves, people need to get paid. We will only celebrate once people are eating three meals a day.”
The Tonse Alliance candidate was speaking in one of Zambia’s most important electoral provinces. Eastern Province has 1,129,444 registered voters, making it one of the largest voting blocs in the country and a key battleground for any candidate seeking the 50%+1 threshold.
Mundubile accused the UPND of being too focused on impressing donors while ordinary citizens remain under pressure. He argued that young farmers involved in cotton and soya beans would be wealthier if government’s economic claims were translating into rural prosperity.
He also promised to restore eight bags of fertiliser per farmer under FISP, saying the era of farmers sharing inputs in small portions would end under a Tonse government.
On jobs, Mundubile said the UPND had concentrated too much on teacher and health worker recruitment while neglecting other professions and the informal sector. “We appreciate teachers and health workers,” he said, “but other professions must also benefit.”
He promised investment in value addition, aggregation facilities and processing plants so farmers can earn more from crops such as bananas, cotton and soya. He also repeated his pledge to support small-scale gold miners through training, equipment and formalisation.
The message was clear. The UPND wants voters to see falling inflation, a stronger kwacha, debt restructuring and foreign reserves of about US$6.5 billion as proof of economic recovery. Mundubile wants voters to ask whether those numbers have reached their pockets.
That is now the economic argument of the campaign.
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© The People’s Brief | Mwape Nthegwa & Ollus R. Ndomu
Mr. Mundubile’s campaign is heavy on expenditure and thin on how he is going to raise the finances required. In simple terms, his is a wish list. You can’t spend money you don’t have.
Mr. Mundubile should tell us how he is going to make the money he intends to spend so lavishly otherwise his promises are empty.