Maravi

Rupiah is leading a gymnastic govt - Hichilema

Rupiah is leading a gymnastic govt - Hichilema
Written by Lambwe Kachali
Tuesday, November 25, 2008 2:45:20 PM

OPPOSITION UPND president Hakainde Hichilema on Tuesday charged that Zambian President Rupiah Banda is leading a gymnastic government, saying his Cabinet will face an up-hill battle to stabilise the economy.

And Hichilema said asking President Banda not to assent to the three Bills which seek to increase salary and allowances for constitutional office holders and senior government officials is like asking a stone to produce milk.

Speaking in an interview, Hichilema said President Banda's political lies had begun to manifest. Hichilema said the future of the country was being threatened under the leadership of President Banda.

He said first and foremost the country would not reach the projected seven per cent inflation rate by December this year. He said contrary to President Banda's campaign promises of continuity; the country's economy was getting worse than ever.

"Rupiah has failed the people on many things, you are going to see. This economy is headed for hardships. Inflation is 15 per cent now; the target was 7 per cent. We are almost completing the month of November and the inflation rate is definitely on a run-away situation. It will be more than double the projection. The Kwacha is under pressure because of lack of confidence in the leadership among other reasons. The interest rate has increased, so the cost of borrowing will increase which will work its way through into the economy. Everything is going the opposite direction under Rupiah Banda," Hichilema said. "This is what we said when we talked about the quality of leadership."

He said Zambians should not expect any improvement in the economy because President Banda was not a leader worth bringing that required change.

"I think it is high time Zambians began to understand that. When we have an opportunity to choose leaders, we need to elect leaders based on policy, based on what they can offer. Now look at price of mealie-meal, you look at the price of fertiliser. I would like anybody to go into a shop and show me the shop which is selling fertiliser at K50, 000 per 50kg bag. Fertiliser is selling at K250, 000 per 50kg bag but during the campaign we were told by Rupiah that fertiliser price has been reduced to K50, 000 per 50kg bag. We were also told that the load shedding will decrease, but load shedding has increased. Is this the leadership Zambians wanted?" Hichilema asked.

He urged Zambians to hold President Banda and his government accountable if he failed to improve their lives.

"The poverty you see now is direct results of the poor policies. The shortage of food, mealie-meal prices are going up when we exported maize to other countries including Zimbabwe at a lower price. Now we are going to import at a higher price; these are the poor policies we were talking about," he said.

And Hichilema said President Banda would have prevailed over the salary and allowances increments.

He said it was extremely unfortunate that instead of President Banda focusing on fighting poverty, HIV, corruption among other problems, he had gone ahead to allow parliamentarians to effect the salaries for himself and his ministers.

Hichilema said although he was equally disappointed with his [UPND] members of parliament for voting in favour of the Bills, little could they have done because the Bills had already been approved by Cabinet.

"A member of parliament under parliamentary procedure is not allowed to debate a Bill that affects them such as salary. The salary and allowance Bills are a clear product of the executive. The executive actually is responsible for those Bills. Before those Bills are taken to parliament, they were debated in Cabinet and a person chairing the Cabinet is the president. Rupiah Banda would have presided over these Bills," Hichilema said.

He said people calling on President Banda not to assent to the Bills were wasting their time because he [President Banda] was more concerned about fattening his pocket than the lives of the poor.

"I have heard people asking the president not to sign. The president is the one who was chairing the meetings that authorised the Bills to go to parliament. It was not a private members' Bill. This is a Cabinet motion; it was an executive motion which is not debated. And we explained this even the last time that Rupiah has just temporarily suspended these Bills so that he can hoodwink the people of Zambia. Immediately you vote him into office, he will effect the Bills. And less than a month, this has happened," Hichilema said."... So to ask Rupiah Banda not to sign the bills which he himself authorised in Cabinet is like asking a stone to give you milk because a stone will never give you milk."

Meanwhile, Hichilema has demanded that government should pay for the University of Zambia (UNZA) students who had been denied to write examinations because they did not pay tuition fees.

He said if it was towards elections, President Banda would have directed government to clear students' outstanding fees.

Hichilema urged President Banda's administration to prioritise education if the country was to develop.

"It is irresponsible for government to deny them to write their examinations. To deny students to write an examination is condemning such students to perpetual poverty. And in my view, it is unacceptable because for government ministers to be sitting in their offices when they are aware that students won't write their exams and their future is finished. I think those colleagues have no moral feelings, they have no obligation to a wider society. As a country we must begin to develop basic morality, basic sense of guilty.

I demand that the University of Zambia must allow the students to write the exams immediately. Its government's obligation, it's our obligation as society to reciprocate and provide education for all our people," said Hichilema.

Labels: CABINET, HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 2:47 PM