Patriotic Front (PF) Lunte Member of Parliament Mutotwe Kafwaya has said the United Party for National Development (UPND) must focus on fulfilling old promises as opposed to making new ones.
Mr. Kafwaya, the PF presidential aspirant, has observed that the UPND has already made enough promises to the people of Zambia and most of them are yet to be fulfilled.
He cited some promises the New Dawn Government is yet to fulfill as selling the presidential jet, reducing mealie meal prices to K50.00 per 25KG bag, reduction of the cost fuel to K12.00 per litre, reduction of fertilizer price to K250.00, creating of employment for youths and reducing the cost of doing business.
Mr. Kafwaya said some promises the UPND made such as making the Kwacha appreciate in hours after forming government were time bound and can never be fulfilled as the period attached to the promises has already elapsed.
He also cautioned the UPND against labeling civil servants as PF.
“Two things UPND must stop doing. UPND as a governing system must stop the following two things: Stop giving further promises and stop calling public workers as PF. Let me start by thanking UPND for managing hooliganism in bus stations and markets. President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration has done well on this front, in my view. But the administration must make sure that this clean up is not just superficial, but becomes entrenched not only in the UPND ranks but also in the total political landscape of our country,” he said.
“Stop giving further promises. As UPND, you have given enough promises to the people. Many of these promises are yet to be fulfilled. Remember that these promises were given at different levels for example, when Hon Garry Nkombo promised that immediately after HH was sworn in, they would get bulldozers to demolish houses in forest 27, he was just a member of parliament and an NMC in UPND. Now he has more power because in addition to both of those, he has been appointed minister, making it easier to fulfill promises,” Mr. Kafwaya stated.
“There are promises which were time bound, for example the fours of Kwacha appreciation, from 10 hours to 14 hours. This means that such promises and others will never be fulfilled as the timing attached to the promises have already lapsed. As such people including myself will receive promises from UPND with suspicion because the credibility record is quite poor. To save the situation, as opposed to giving further promises, UPND should take existing promises as enough and work on fulfilling them.”
“Putting it more strait, please sell the jet, reduce mealie meal to ZMW50.00, reduce the cost fuel to ZMW12.00, reduce fertilizer cost to ZMW250.00, create employment for Youth’s, create business opportunities for Zambian Youth’s, reduce the cost of doing business etc.These promises once fulfilled, will cause the UPND party to boost its credibility record, and then it would be more appropriate to come up with further promises,” the Lunte MP added.
He warned that the agenda of labeling public workers as PF is a dangerous one and can cause serious service problems not only to the government but to people as well.
“Stop calling civil servants or public workers as PF. The first thing to think about is that there are people being employed in the public service right now. Would you want future Governments to regard them as UPND? Of course not, I hope. Government is a going concern. This agenda of labeling public workers as Pf is a dangerous one and can cause serious service problems not only to the Government but to people as well. Those police men, nurses, doctors, teachers, judges, soldiers are professionals who are professionally trained. And they fully comprehend the need to serve the Government of the day. Please give them a break. They are at your service. Please just apply them well and your objectives will be achieved. I strongly wish our nation well,” Mr. Kafwaya concluded.
