Maravi

Sata challenges Rupiah to a live phone-in debate

Sata challenges Rupiah to a live phone-in debate
By Chibaula Silwamba in Nakonde
Mon 24 Jan. 2011, 04:01 CAT

MICHAEL Sata has challenged President Rupiah Banda to a live phone-in radio programme to debate various issues. President Banda last Monday during the MMD Northern Province conference said he was prepared to go for a debate with Sata and prove that the Patriotic Front (PF) leader’s statements accusing his government of failing to develop Zambia were lies.

And Sata said the PF will field 150 parliamentary candidates in all the constituencies countrywide in the 2011 elections.

In an interview, Sata said the phone-in debate between him and President Banda should be done in three days so that many Zambians could be accorded an opportunity to quiz him and the head of state on different topics.

“I am challenging comrade Rupiah Banda for a live phone-in programme on Radio Phoenix or QFM so that he can explain what development he has done in Zambia for the last two years he has been in office,” Sata said.

“I want him for three consecutive days because one hour or two hours won’t be enough. Rupiah Banda can bring his entire Cabinet and his advisors but I will go alone and challenge him. I will ask him questions so that he can tell us what development he has done.”

Last Monday at the MMD conference in Kasama, President Banda said opposition leaders’ statements against his government were “a double lie”.

“Many of them, including their leader Mr Sata, have been leaders all along. They have been ministers. Mr Sata was national secretary of this party MMD. He was minister of health, and local government. Please Mr Sata tomorrow January 18, 2011 when you hear this statement mention one new hospital which was built during your time. Tell the Zambian people which hospital or clinic you built,” said President Banda.

“I am embarrassed to ask my minister of health to catalogue to you now how many hospitals over the last few years since Mr Sata ceased to be minister of health we have built as a party and government. So they will be lying to you. I am prepared to go on a debate and prove that they are lying to say that when they came they will do this. Why didn’t they do it before?”

Addressing a rally in Nakonde town on Saturday, Sata told the audience to effect change of government this year and not wait for him to tell them to do so.

He said it was up to the people of this region, which he undertook to name Muchinga Province if he became President, to ensure that there was change of government.

“It is you who are suffering, so the change must be in your heads not me telling you,” Sata said. “You cannot continue pretending that you are not suffering.”

He said the people of Nakonde were suffering without the MMD government listening to their appeal for development, job creation and business ventures to uplift the people’s wellbeing.

Sata said it was up to the people of Nakonde district to liberate themselves by voting for the PF and ensure that it forms government that would in turn ensure the area was developed.

“When you pick PF, I want to promise you… without you Namwanga people looking after me at Kantenshya Catholic Centre where I was a trainee priest in 1951-1953, I would not be standing here. I owe you. Before I die, I want to prove to Rupiah Banda and others that this place will be beautiful and everybody will be coming to admire it,” Sata said.

“We want to come and encourage your rearing of animals. That will give you more money than copper because in Tanzania, DR Congo, Malawi they want to eat meat. We want to encourage people of this area to continue growing various crops like rice, tobacco, sunflower and sorghum and you will be paid on time.”

Sata, who earlier paid a courtesy call on senior chieftainess Nawaitwika, said the supreme ruler of the Namwanga people was not being looked after well by the Banda government.

He said senior chieftainess Nawaitwika did not even have water supply.

He mocked President Banda, Vice-President George Kunda and the MMD government for claiming that they were developing the country when in fact people could see for themselves that there was no development in the areas.

Sata bemoaned the bad road from Serenje to Nakonde, a border town with Tanzania.

He said the road was mostly damaged by international trucks hauling fuel and other heavy goods to and from Zambia without paying sufficient levies for them to repair the road infrastructure.

“Look at those foreign trucks passing there, the people driving them are all foreigners. Our children are suffering without work but you are creating employment for other people. That is development for Mr Rupiah Banda.” said Sata, as the audience chanted anti-government slogans. “Nakonde cannot grow when Rupiah Banda takes business and gives it to these foreigners. There isn’t even a single Zambian truck crossing the border. Those people don’t even sleep in our guest houses; they sleep in trucks.”

Sata bemoaned the brown and dirty water people of Nakonde and visitors were subjected to drink.
At the same rally, PF chairperson for transport Willie Nsanda warned that transporters might shun having their buses travelling on the dilapidated Serenje-Nakonde route because it was damaged and damages buses.

PF chairperson for elections Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba urged the electors to vote en masse and ensure that there were no malpractices by the MMD.

Closing the PF conference for Muchinga Province where the delegates elected new office bearers to be led by Jimmy Sinyinza as chairperson, Mwamba urged the losers and winners to work together to fight the common enemy, the MMD, and win the tripartite elections.

Labels: MICHAEL SATA, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 12:12 PM