Leading opposition party, PF, accuses President Hichilema of being wasteful, divisive in resource allocation

Patriotic Front (PF) Vice President, Given Lubinda, says it is reckless and irresponsible for President Hakainde Hichilema-led government to spend colossal sums of money to just handover vehicles to Councils.

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development had issued a notice inviting Councils, Mayors, Council Chairpersons, Members of Parliament, Principal Officers and other government officials to the official handover of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) Project Monitoring Motor Vehicles by President Hakainde Hichilema on Wednesday at the Zambia Agricultural Showgrounds in Lusaka.

Lubinda in a statement issued on Tuesday in Lusaka said the country is in dire economic stress with the lack of liquidity, rising youth unemployment, critical shortages of medicines and medical supplies in healthcare facilities and rising inflation.

He said this was coupled with the spiraling cost of living, among other numerous economic challenges, yet Government finds it prudent to use the country’s meagre resources on an unnecessary expenditure such as a handover ceremony of vehicles.

“The money that government will squander on this ceremony could have been channeled to needy areas such as the procurement of medicines and medical supplies in our healthcare facilities which have been relegated to death centres,” Lubinda said.

He said the distribution of the said vehicles is unbalanced and biased towards the UPND as 56 out of a total of 70 vehicles have been given to UPND controlled Councils in Southern and Western Provinces leaving only 9 to PF controlled Councils and 8 to Independent controlled Councils in the other 8 provinces.

“Article 147 of the Constitution of Zambia demands that Government must observe and ensure equitable distribution and application of national resources to all regions and all Zambians without any favoritism or preference to any region or any grouping,” Lubinda said.

He said the conduct of President Hichilema and his government to discriminate and segregate certain regions and groupings from freely participating and fully benefiting from the national cake is divisive, ethnic, unpatriotic and highly polarizing and must be condemned and challenged.

Lubinda said this unpatriotic, ethnic and divisive behaviour from President Hichilema was not only limited to the issue of CDF vehicles but had spread to all facets of government business, including the distribution of government jobs and contracts.

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