Africa-Press – Zambia. Immediate past Luanshya Member of Parliament Steve Chungu says the people of Zambia are eagerly waiting to see the value of changing Government from the Patriotic Font (PF) to the United Party for National Development (UPND) last August.
Mr. Chungu said the UPND Government must strive to impact positively on the livelihood of many Zambians that voted for change in huge numbers during the August poll day.
The former Government Chief Whip in the previous PF regime said there is urgent need for the New Dawn Government to focus its attention on prioritising things that will improve the lives of people such as reduction in prices of essential commodities.
“I know there is a lot of pressure right now because of the so many promises that were made to the Zambian people and the Zambian people are expecting quite a lot from this Government because they made a decision to remove the PF Government that was in power. What the Zambian people wanted was a change to better their lives because they had reached a point where they had gone into a lot of problems. They were suffering; they could not afford to buy this and that,” said Mr. Chungu.
“Now if the UPND Government does not move this country and the expectations of the people in terms of the cost of living, the Zambian people will not take it lightly. The Zambian people are very judgmental, once they make a decision to say we are done with this, they will move on.”
Mr. Chungu said it will not help for the UPND Government to start witch hunting through arrest of their suspected political rivals witnessed in the recent past.
“Let me tell you one thing, I am one person that was not happy then when President HH was being arrested and persecuted. I was not happy and even now I am not happy with the arrests that are taking place because this country is going to get divided more than ever before. We are going to see regionalism, tribalism at its peak because of what is currently going on,” he said.
“The Zambian people are not interested in the arrests; no one is excited about that. The Zambian people are looking forward to a Government that is going to change the lives of the people by bringing affordable items of food because salaries of the people are still static but most of the goods have gone up by more than 100% so the food basket is two, three times what it was three years ago. That is why the Zambian people made a decision to change the Government. And Zambian people are expecting to see that their lives are better, not the arrests.”
Mr. Chungu said in the slightly over a hundred days the UPND has been in Government it is difficult to point out the real change in the lives of the Zambian people.
“As of now there is nothing that someone can get excited about. Even the current 2022 National Budget they are talking about there is nothing exciting about it. A budget when it is presented, those are just pronouncements that are made and looking at the way things are being managed I don’t see the Government managing that budget above 70%. I do not see that coming,” he said. The former lawmaker opposed the removal of mineral loyalty tax as pronounced in the 2022 National Budget by Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane.
“It will be very difficult especially if you know you go and say we are removing the mineral loyalty tax and we are going to go with a profit based tax. Which mining company in Zambia has ever declared a profit in the last so many years? It has never happened so there is nothing we are ever going to benefit from our minerals because all these mining companies have offshore companies that they sell their copper to at a very low price and that is what they will declare.”
“And those offshore companies will later move the material to the London Metal exchange so there is nothing that we are going to get from these foreign run mining companies,” he concluded.
Mr. Chungu is a losing Independent Parliamentary candidate in Luanshya Constituency, who was not re-adopted by the Patriotic Front prior to the August elections.
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