By Staff Reporter
Africa-Press – Zambia. With Christmas less than two weeks away, a chilling shadow looms over Zambia’s heartland.
Farmers—the backbone of the nation’s food security—face the prospect of a “Black Christmas,” stripped of joy, dignity, and the simple comforts they have always provided for their families.
Opposition presidential candidate Brian Mundubile has sounded the alarm, warning that thousands of farmers who sold their produce to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) remain unpaid. “For the first time, our farmers will celebrate Christmas broke. No chickens, no rice, no mazoe, no parties. Just hunger and despair,” Mundubile declared in Lusaka.
The anguish is palpable. Farmers, who toil under the sun to feed the nation, now sit in silence, wondering how they will explain to their children why there will be no Christmas meal. Worse still, January looms with tuition fees for colleges and universities, yet parents have no money to send their children back to school.
Mundubile condemned the government’s priorities, accusing it of diverting billions of kwacha to a flawed constitutional amendment process—Bill 7—rejected by the people and ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. “This Bill is a veiled evil, a distraction from the elephant in the room: unpaid farmers, lack of electricity, and a skyrocketing cost of living that has pushed over 60 percent of Zambians into abject poverty,” he charged.
The Oasis Forum has echoed these concerns, branding Bill 7 illegal. Yet, the government remains silent on the plight of farmers and the worsening power crisis.
Mundubile, a former cabinet minister and ex-chairman of the Energy Regulation Board, vowed to fight Bill 7 “with every energy in my body,” urging citizens to resist its tabling in Parliament on December 15. “As farmers go hungry on Christmas Day, the government must be reminded that these men and women are not beggars. They are the lifeblood of Zambia. Without them, there is no food, no economy, no future.”
The silence from the ruling UPND government is deafening. Farmers, who should be celebrated as heroes, are instead abandoned in sorrow. Their sweat waters Zambia’s prosperity, yet today they face humiliation, unpaid and forgotten.
He bemoaned rising speculation that some lawmakers have been ‘bribed’ to vote in favour of the illegal Bill 7.
As the nation heads toward elections on August 13, 2026, the plight of farmers has become a symbol of a divided and toxic political environment. Christmas, once a season of joy, now threatens to be remembered as the darkest for those who feed us all.
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