Why haven’t we called for resignation of HH, things aren’t going right – Musenge
Why haven’t we called for resignation of HH, things aren’t going right – Musenge
By Fanny Kalonda
WE are worser than we were in the previous administration, says Mwenya Musenge.
He cited the prices of essential commodities and the shortage of mealie meal in the country.
Featuring on KBN TV’s State of the Nation programme on Thursday, Musenge said poverty levels have continued to escalate and that more people are dying from hunger.
“Our democracy hasn’t matured because in true essence if a leader fails to perform he must be taken to task. If you have to terminate, it’s a performance contract, it should be terminated. It should be terminated. Even in this regard, I don’t know why we are even wasting time, why we haven’t called for the resignation of HH because things are not going right. Now when we speak like that, tomorrow Musenge will be arrested, that no he’s alarming the nation and you are charged for treason. That’s not the way things are supposed to happen. The democracy in our country is being suppressed, crushed…The people have been going out in numbers to change governments, to bring in new leaders, with the hope that their living standards will improve but the poverty of our people have continued to escalate. Where we are today, there are more people that are dying from hunger and disease,” he said. “Change of government, where are we? We are worser than we were in the previous administration. Look at the cost of mealie meal, apart from being so expensive, in certain areas mealie meal is scarce. I was just reading today where people are queuing up. They (ZNS) will take the truck at a field, at a school, football pitch there and then people will be lining up from morning to buy mealie meal from a truck. Where are we taking ourselves? And yet people are supposed to walk into a shop and buy mealie meal and go back home and eat.”
Musenge said even in the previous administration, mealie meal was being smuggled to DR Congo but there was enough for the country.
“In the previous administration, mealie meal was not as expensive as it is. There were times like during the rainy season, December,
farming season, you would have some shortages but not the shortages within the country. There was smuggling of mealie meal to the neighbouring country which was Congo but you would find mealie meal in all the shops at the reasonable price,” he said.
“Now if you promised the people to say when I come into office a bag of mealie meal will be K50, when I come into office fuel will be single digit… I want to believe that when you are making such pronouncements as a political party, you had already made your home work and you knew how it was going to be implemented and more especially that my dear President is an economist who understands economy, like the back of his hand, not like some of us who have not even done economics. Now you come into government and then everything goes wayward. The bag of mealie meal [is selling at] K350, 200 in certain places. In rural areas where people do not even work the mealie meal is going around K450. We are only talking about those along the line of rail, what about our brothers, our parents, our uncles in the remote areas, how are they surviving?”
Musenge said the problem is with the current government’s agricultural policy.
“It is simple, it is their agricultural policy. We were told that all the maize reserves that they found they sold hoping that they were going to have a bumper harvest next year and it never happened. And secondly, I don’t know whoever told them about the FISP programme, they went into it and interfered with it. Today farmers are sharing farming inputs in medas, buckets. We thought the last farming season it was a mistake and our colleagues were going to correct it in this year’s farming season but it’s the same. It is the same and I can assure you come next year, I don’t think there will be something to smile about in terms of maize production. There’s also another serious issue, the quality of fertiliser is also questionable. The quality, you know I had interacted with some farmers the last farming season. One farmer said ‘look I thought maybe it was only me who had a problem with my field because you see I’ve always been ploughing the same size of field, applying the same amount of fertiliser, but the quality of the maize was so poor. The cobs were so thin’. Then he learned from his fellow farmer that he experienced the same,” narrated Musenge. “Another farmer it was later realised that it was the quality of fertiliser. If the government does not take serious control on how you procure the fertiliser from whom you are procuring the fertiliser, the quality of the fertiliser it has to be tested, then we will have big problems…
No, I don’t have hope because you see I have been in a political party that won elections and ruled this country under Michael Chilufya Sata and immediately Michael Chilufya Sata took over as president, he is a great man, in less than 90 days all the civil servants received 300 per cent salary hikes. There’s never been anyone else who has ever done that much.”