SUNDAY CHANDA BACKS GEORGE MTONGA, SAYS GOVERNMENT CANNOT BUY ALL THE MAIZE FROM FARMERS
Former UPND Kanchibiya parliamentary candidate Sunday Chanda has added his voice to the ongoing verbal exchange between Mark Simuuwe and George Mtonga over maize marketing.
Mr Chanda said the Government would not be able to buy all the 10 million metric tonnes of maize if the production target was achieved, arguing that private players would also need to participate in the maize market.
This year, the Government has so far purchased only 2.7 million metric tonnes of maize.
Mr Chanda’s remarks come after George Mtonga encouraged farmers to explore alternative markets and sell their maize to private buyers.
However, UPND Media Director Mark Simuuwe condemned Mr Mtonga’s remarks, arguing that encouraging farmers to sell their maize to private buyers amounted to an attack on President Hakainde Hichilema’s 10-million-tonne maize production target.
Current Zambia
Ba Mtonga stop acting like a child. Your display of reactionary behaviour even if you are right is not a sign of leadership.
We know you are all looking for a job. To undermine the party structure with such series of statements is wrong. You may have lobbied for a certain policy direction. But your outbursts and differences should not be a public spectical. Its the immature that go about doing things in such a manner. Beside the State, through the Ministry of Agriculture has issued a statement partly agreeing with you.
Government and the Party is not run and can not be run when everyone shouts what they think, when they think they are not being heard. What happens when you have an issue wrong? Who bears the cost.
We have a heirachy and system in government and the Party for a reason. If you dont have the discipline to toe the party line. You will only breed what we saw in PF, that led to the multiplicity of factions.
Have your brawls in private; its normal to disagree but desist urge to going out in public to wash your dirty laundry. Its immature. Its not leadership. You taint the image of the party for your own self agrandisment. Only children act like that. You are grown men.
Ba Sunday, you are new to the Party. You just lost an election not because you never delivered. But due Political cultural perception among our electorate. Work on fixing that than this kind of jostling of attention or positions. It doesnt give a good projection of how you address issues by rushing to the media to undermine the Person the Party has appointed to head the Party mouth piece. Mtonga crossed the line. Dont support indiscipline. He right policy wise but wrong by seeking attention to get his point across.
Both George Mtonga and Sunday Chanda are attention seekers in this matter. Who does not know that FRA or Government cannot buy all the food produce, be it 10 million tonnes of maize or others? It is intended to grow the economy as whole. It is not the right way to jockeying for jobs.