Maravi

PF MPs query Rupiah’s ‘achievements’

PF MPs query Rupiah’s ‘achievements’
By Darious Kapembwa in Kitwe
Sun 07 Nov. 2010, 03:59 CAT

NCHANGA Patriotic Front member of parliament Wylbur Simuusa has said the MMD is using cosmetic expressions about President Rupiah Banda’s achievements in his two years in office in order to cheat people.

And Nkana PF member of parliament Mwenya Musenge has said President Banda’s greatest achievement in the two years he has been in office has been the weakening of laws that fight corruption.

In an interview, Simuusa advised President Banda and the MMD to let the ordinary Zambian people, especially those that live in poverty-stricken areas, to judge his performance in the last two years.

Simuusa, who is PF chairman for mines, said heaping praise on President Banda’s works in the last two years he had been in office could be likened to parroting because there were still a lot of challenges which had been created by the MMD government in the mining sector.

“I can summarise as parroting; these guys like parroting. They use too much cosmetic expressions to cheat people about so-and-so achievement. Can he tell us the figures that the country will gain from the variable profit tax he has insisted on since his government had rejected the re-introduction of windfall tax? The only achievement is that he is engrossed into campaigns too much. He’s every day campaigning and if he has achieved so much in stabilising the economy, why is it that it is still a challenge for people to eat?” asked Simuusa.

And Musenge said commissioning another person’s project was no achievement at all.

“Personally, I think that he has achieved so much in trying to create lacunas in our statutes that fight corruption in order to weaken them for his personal gains, and you see you cannot make and blow your own trumpet and judge to be the best. Let other people judge the strength of your trumpet,” Musenge said.

He wondered how the economy could be said to have improved when many families went without adequate meals per day.

Musenge said clean water and access to quality health care was still a challenge to many Zambians especially in the peripheral areas in his constituency.

And Chipili PF member of parliament Davies Mwila said President Banda had achieved a lot in weakening the labour movement in the country.

Mwila, who is PF chairperson for labour, wondered why there should be four unions in the mining sector.

“First and foremost, are the people benefiting from the so-called economic growth, even the so-called bumper-harvest? Why is mealie-meal still very costly? What are the benefits to the workers if a government can allow companies to subcontract in the mines and employ foreigners to render Zambians jobless; do you call such achievements? Has he addressed the issue of the minimum wage? It seems he is comfortable with workers getting K258,000 as a wage so much that he can call it an achievement,” said Mwila.

Labels: ACC, DAVIES MWILA, MWENYA MUSENGE, PF, RUPIAH BANDA, WILBUR SIMUSA

posted by MrK @ 4:26 PM