DEMOCRATIC Party president Harry Kalaba says Bill 10 will collapse in Parliament and replicate the embarrassment the PF government suffered in the case of “donate, procured police bicycles”.
On prisoners voting in next year’s elections, Kalaba said, “we’ll go in all prisons and explain to the inmates all their struggles. We want prisoners to punish the PF!”
Kalaba was speaking on a special interview programme on KNC radio in Kabwe on Tuesday morning.
He said Bill 10 would collapse and “what an embarrassment it will be for the PF!”
“Yalaba ni (it will be an) embarrassment kwati iya majinga (like that to do with bicycles) where they implicated Japan and India. But it will collapse pantu (because) the PF doesn’t have the required numbers in Parliament,” Kalaba said, stressing that all what Bill 10 sought was to ensure that President Edgar Lungu perpetuated his presidency.
“President Lungu wants to go for a third term of office but lawyers are rejecting that. That’s why those in the PF are saying mpaka mpaka fye ipite (come what may, it has to be enacted). Bill 10 has got nothing to do with the poor. What I’m saying isn’t politics but the truth. I was a member of parliament for seven years and I know what I’m talking about.”
He lamented that the democratic space in the country was shrinking for everyone, “except for the PF.”
“I don’t understand why we even went multiparty because it seems to me that it’s more convenient for the PF to block everybody else from talking, apart from themselves,” he said.
Kalaba said there was currently no media independence in Zambia.
“I don’t even know why they are giving out radio and TV licences. Today you give a licence to QTV and tomorrow you say ‘you are going to get out of DStv, GOtv…’ What are we doing? All this is just showing you that there is no media independence in this country,” he complained. “The PF just wants all of us to be watching ZNBC, so that we can be seeing their faces opening bridges laced with corruption. We’ll not allow that!”
He further noted that when it comes to employment opportunities in the country, “the youths are not part of the agenda.”
Kalaba regretted that only youths connected to political leaders of the PF were part of the country’s developmental agenda.
“Empowerment for the youths is a tall order. When youths want to voice out their grievances, see the venom, see the hatred which is coming from the leaders! Look at how the youths are meant to apologise! They want to suppress the voice of the youths,” Kalaba said. “When one says the people who have decent jobs in Zambia are foreigners, at the expense of locals, does that qualify for an insult? How else can you say it? If you say that we are being disadvantaged in this country…Look at the businesses in this country! Who is doing the roads in this country? It’s Chinese. Who is doing the [communication] towers in this country? It’s Chinese. Who is doing the other businesses? It’s Lebanese. There is nothing at all for Zambians in this country.”
The opposition leader reiterated that the DP was of the view that Zambians retain the wealth of their country.
“Let us go out there and get this country back in the hands of ordinary Zambians. Once that is done, then all other things will fall in place. What that means is that our mukula tree (rosewood) will not be going out before it is processed. We’ll be making desks and using it for other things. We’ll begin creating jobs right here in Zambia,” Kalaba said.
Meanwhile, Kalaba said the DP had written the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) on “outrageously high” nomination fees, the 30-day voter registration period and other related electoral issues.
“We want as many people as possible to register as voters. Then on prisoners voting next year; we’ll go in all prisons and explain to the inmates all their struggles. We want prisoners to punish the PF! If the PF tells prisoners that ‘we’ll pardon you after up the elections,’ we’ll say don’t believe that gimmick,” explained Kalaba. “The people of Kabwe were promised that this Mulungushi Textiles will be fully operational. Is that the case? No! So, how can they fulfill promises to a prisoner, when they haven’t done so to free people?”