WE’LL NOT KEEP QUIET – MUNDUBILE
By NATION REPORTER
THE Patriotic Front (PF) will not keep quiet or shut up on talking about the governance wrongs being committed by the new dawn administration until President Hakainde Hichilema decisively deals with the real and bigger python in the name of high cost of living, corruption, police brutality and illegal mining on the Copperbelt and Mpika, Brian Mundubile has said.
And Mr Mundubile says there is nowhere in the Constitution that when a political party loses power to govern, its leaders and members lose their rights to speak against the wrongs and violations in the governance system.
Mr Mundubile said President Hichilema had been referring Zambia’s external debt as a python yet it was from the same debt that the country had seen unprecedented exponential economic infrastructure development in the education, health, telecommunication and energy sector.
Mr Mundubile, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament said what was constricting and eating Zambians was the high cost of living, high cost of fuel, mealie meal, and corruption in the entire procurement system as well as the diminishing democratic space in the country.
He said in an interview that it was politically, economically and socially incorrect for President Hichilema to ask Zambians to join him in celebrating the successful debt restructuring when it was a well-known fear that harder times were coming ahead as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditions shall come into effect.
“Mr Hakainde Hichilema, the President of Zambia should be informed that the PF will not keep quiet or shut up and watch as the country’s peace is deteriorating. We are in a democratic dispensation and it is not right for President Hichilema to shut us up. There is nowhere in the law that when a political party loses power to govern, its leadership or membership also loses their
right to speak against the wrongs.”
So, let President Hichilema know that the biggest python is not the debt he is talking about. The biggest python is the high cost of living, the high cost of mealie meal, fuel. The bigger python is the grand corruption in the new dawn under the watch of the President.
The python in the house is the non-availability of essential medicines in hos- pitals and unless and until President Hichilema deals with those, he is rest assured the PF will not keep quiet,” Mr Mundubile said.
Mr Mundubile is calling on President Hichilema to deal with the alleged illegal mining at the Konkola Copper Mine (KCM) by a company called Sensele before asking Zambians to join him in celebrating the debt restructuring deal.
He said President Hichilema was able to promote free education because the PF in power borrowed and prudently used the loan to build primary and secondary school across the country.
Mr Mundubile stated that communication and movements of good and services had been made easier because the former ruling party used the borrowed money to build communication towers, roads and three big international airports.
He explained that the PF was transparent in its borrowing and that Zambians came to know about the US$12 billion debt because the matter had been brought up on the floor of the House in Parliament.
“The President is now calling the debt as the python but while in opposition, he promised Zambians that he was going to deal with it. He said it was a small issue. So. When he is calling the debt python when he promised he had a solution for it, then the President is constructively admitting that the assignment of governing the country is bigger than he thought. That is probably President Hichilema in his view thinks the K28 million Constituency Development Fund is the answer to all the problems,” Mr Mundubile said.