You promised 3 decent meals a day, Greyford Monde reminds UPND
Lusaka, Wednesday, December 14, 2022 (The Mast)
I DON’T know who next they are going to point the finger at for their failures, Greyford Monde has mocked the ruling UPND.
The PF presidential hopeful charged that the UPND government will spend the first term in power blaming others for their failures.
He said it is extremely bad for the government to blame other countries for the wrongs going on in the country.
Monde said this when he featured on Muvi TV’s The Platform programme on Sunday.
“The whole five years will finish with them pointing fingers at the PF. For any wrong, PF! And now you have seen last week they started pointing fingers at neighbouring countries. I don’t want to mention names. I don’t want to be the one now promoting this undiplomatic trading with neighbouring countries,” he said.
“Because for you to start naming countries to say they are the ones who are wrong, that is very serious. It is actually recipe for mini fights between nations. So you can’t start doing that. No matter how much you feel stressed, there will always be an avenue for you as a country to go and sit down and negotiate. To say ‘look, we have got the following procedure to manage this water body or boarder’. Unlike bringing such media statements.”
Monde charged that it is hard to advise the UPND because they think “they are doing the perfect thing”.
He lamented the cost of living which he says has escalated under the watch of the UPND government.
“People ask why can’t you advise? How can you advise such people? You advise them they will tell you that what they are doing is perfect. So we will watch them, unfortunately the lives of the people are at stake,” Monde said.
“We are hearing from people and we are also affected…the price of fuel for example is very key to the process of the economy. And when fuel prices have gone up, the effects go on everything that you buy. Soap in the village, salt, bread, meat, cooking oil… so to access these goods out there in the village, out there in Batoka, you use transport and that in itself kills it all.”
Monde said if government failed to find avenues or ways to raise resources for its people, “it will be dangerous for them to immediately cut subsidies especially on fuel”.
“You can’t just terminate without having to consider,” he said.
Monde noted that prices of commodities are going up while people’s wages are static.
“So you have people stressing over this. Rentals are going up, all the commodities are going up, salaries are still static. And you want to say ‘no we are a prudent government’ and that we are not going to subsidise for our people. No government in this world does not subsidise for its people especially on critical items that drive the economy,” he said.
“What we need to do or what we needed to do as a country and I am glad UPND talked about this so much and I hope they are going to do… Every country, there are three things involved. One, it’s people. The human resource, which Zambia has, the natural resource that Zambia has and the policies around its people and around natural resources. When you put this together, the country will thrive economically. But in this country you can say that it’s a way of political fights and the usual talking where you know that this is not holding.”
Monde stressed the need for the private sector to be strengthened so that more job opportunities are created.
“The economy right now is so bad. There is no buying power. Because of the bad economy, no money in circulation. Things are not happening. Jobs are not there. And when I am saying jobs someone is saying ‘what is Monde talking about? We have employed 40,000’. That is not enough. The public sector cannot employ more than the private sector. You can imagine a strong private sector, what it will do. If citizens are empowered and they have the capacity, each one of them will employ two, three people in a barbershop, in a salon. All of these put together it will be hundreds of thousands people working,” said Monde.
“We need to create a strong economy through the private sector. The economy is so bad right now. There is no hope. People are literally living on one meal. They are planning their meals. They eat at 14:00 hours, the next meal will come the following day. The rest they look for mangoes, look for masuku because it’s the season now. You can’t do that to your people and you promised three meals. You promised three meals, decent meals. Are people having those meals? No.”