UPND deputy spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa has advised the ruling Patriotic Front not to politicize food in the country.
Most parts of the country, especially Lusaka and the Copperbelt has experienced shortages of mealie-meal, whose prices have risen to about K250 per 25kg bag.
In an interview, Mweetwa, who is also Choma Central member of parliament said his party was extremely disappointed with PF’s conduct in its responses to the hunger situation in the country and escalating mealie-meal prices.
He said by now the nation could have been given firm and conclusive statements by government on the mealie-meal situation instead of alleging that some people were holding on to maize or that mealie-meal had been mopped up.
“Let them come out categorically clear, who is doing that because that amounts to economic sabotage, which is an offence in Zambia,” Mweetwa said. “They need to tell us something which is believable because so far what we have seen is that PF has been branding mealie-meal and some people are beginning to suspect that they are the ones mopping the mealie-meal so that they go and brand it with PF symbols, ECL 2021. We find this behavior morally incorrect.”
Mweetwa said it was morally incorrect for a government to take advantage of the poverty in the country and the hunger among people to start branding a staple food and turning it into a campaign material.
He said President Lungu talked about promoting morality and integrity in Parliament last week but wondered what integrity there was in the PF branding food and turning it into a campaign material.
Mweetwa urged the PF to stop the political mockery of taking advantage of hunger to politicise a staple food.
“We know that PF had enough bales and bales of citenge and t/shirts and where they found those only God knows but we can speculate all of us. Now are they telling us that those t/shirts and citenge they are distributing all over are not enough campaign material? Are they telling us that they need more visibility than they have done so far to even turn public broadcasters into a PF platform of propaganda?” Mweetwa asked.
He wondered what other visibility the PF was looking for.
He said the PF were in panic mode.
“And when they check, the only thing they can see whichever direction they look at is the word exit. Even in the sky when they look, they see PF exit 2021. There can be no negotiation to change anything as things are now PF 2021 kuya bebele [must go], people have resolved,” he said.
Mweetwa said if they were asked to do check of achievements against its campaign promises in 2016, the PF has nothing.
He said there was suffering in the country.
“Therefore, we humbly request, I am actually begging PF to respect the decency of humanity that Zambians live on maize as a staple food for now and therefore to begin to brand it with political slogans and turn the staple food into campaign material is the highest degree of being disrespectful to the citizens,” he said. “This epitomizes the deterioration of political leadership morals in a country. So we urge them to leave the mealie-meal alone, let people go and buy mealie-meal branded by the manufacturers, the milling companies…. How can PF turn themselves into a milling company to start branding mealie-meal? PF is a political party, it is not a milling company and we have not heard anywhere that PF has purchased a milling plant…even if they purchased, we would still urge them not to brand the staple food with slogans. Let us not politicise the question of food in a country.”
Mweetwa said the PF must explain to the nation what had caused the mealie-meal shortage in the country against the backdrop of many government assurances.
He said at the height of the hunger situation, PF kept on insisting that there were enough maize stocks to see people out of hunger.
He noted that in many parts of the country people had started harvesting their crops meaning the pressure on mealie-meal was reducing.
“Now when we have this intervening variable of people beginning to harvest their crops, one would expect that mealie-meal should have been in abundance. So what has eaten the mealie-meal of Zambia? Please PF tell us what has eaten our mealie-meal,” Mweetwa said.
“There is no way Zambians can continue to live like this; from gassing to mealie-meal prices going high; to mealie-meal shortage. Just when the gassing is coming to an end, there is a mealie-meal shortage, is it because of the supernatural powers, which they have lost? They can’t even tell what has caused the mealie-meal shortage because they have lost their supernatural powers which Seer 1 had given them,” Mweetwa said. “We know there are good men and women in PF, let them come out in the open. These are issue the government should be quick to provide leadership of transparency. Leadership is not driving big vehicles…leadership is providing direction to the nation, it is taking responsibility in times like these.”
He said the PF could not leave the nation to speculation over mealie-meal just like they did on gassing episodes.