By Hastings Nasilele,
DEMOCRATIC Party president Harry Kalaba says very little has been achieved by the UPND government in the first 100 days because they have done more talking than action.
But Southern African Centre for Constructive Resolution of Disputes (SACCORD) executive director Boniface Cheembe has described President Hakainde Hichilema’s first 100 days in office as stable, peaceful and a work in progress.
In an interview, Friday, Kalaba said a government did not operate on a scale of one to 10.
“The UPND can only be measured by what they promised the people of Zambia. Their performance on whether they have performed or not is on what they said in the last 100 days. And for us in the DP we have said we gave them 100 days to see what policy framework they will put in place, to see the attitude they will have towards their promises.
I can tell you that much has to be done for the UPND for them to even talk about what they have done. So basically, little has been achieved in the last 100 days, very little, there is more talk than action. So let the UPND start working and they should minimize too much [on] rhetoric,” he said.
“Government doesn’t work on a scale of one to ten, government doesn’t operate like that. What we need to see is the sectors of the economy. The President should have said ‘which sector do you think has been worked on in the last 100 days’? Not ‘from the scale of one to ten’.
This is real life, and we are not in class. We are talking about medicines in hospitals; we are talking about the farmers receiving their inputs. Farmers up to now have not yet received their money for maize which they sold in the last farming season. We are talking about medicines in hospitals; there are no medicines in hospitals.
So forget about the rhetoric of one to ten, those are not mathematical issues, this is real life. We should be monitoring sectors as opposed to one to ten.”
But Cheembe described President Hichilema’s first 100 days in office as stable, peaceful and a work in progress.
“Well as SACCORD we believe that the first 100 days of President Hichilema and the new dawn government has largely been stable, peaceful and a work in progress.
We are happy at the fact that the President has been very consistent in as far as inclusion, peace and unity is concerned as ably elaborated on various platforms starting with his initial speech shortly after being declared winner of the 12th August 2021 elections going up to his inaugural speech, to the speech made during the opening of Parliament, the speech made at the UN general assembly, in the UPND manifesto and most critically ably articulated in the 2022 national budget.
In practical terms, it’s good to see that the appointments have been balanced across the 10 regional provinces of the Republic of Zambia at cabinet level. Also replicated by and large to permanent secretaries and also district commissioners,” he said.
“That spirit of inclusion of ensuring that every Zambian feels part and parcel of the republic is extremely important because oftentimes when people feel excluded or marginalized, it creates discontent which ultimately becomes a conflict driver.
Over and above, that we are happy that President Hichilema and the new dawn government have committed themselves to deliberately invest in peace building measures by implementing the country’s structural vulnerability assessment of the African Union to ensure that whatever structural vulnerabilities we have as a country are identified and mitigation measures are put in place.
This is extremely important considering the fact that we have seen a slide in the levels of peacefulness as a country as evidenced in the 2021 global peace index.”
He urged the government to focus on healing the nation in order to deliver on the developmental agenda.
“We expect to continue for the next 100 days but as we do that it is important that the President and the new dawn government continue to heal the nation. The country is in need of healing and this must become a very important focus point for their agenda and once the nation is healed and the trauma is addressed, we are able to unite the nation so that the focus is on delivering the developmental agenda of the country.
So in a nutshell the first 100 days have largely been stable and peaceful and work in progress and the people of Zambia look forward to the next 100 days and beyond as far as implementing many of the good things that have transpired in the first 100 days,” said Cheembe.