Govt advised to be proactive on distribution of relief foods to affected parts of Zambia (Video)

The Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) is concerned that the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) has not yet commenced distribution of relief food.

Party president, Sean Tembo, said the distribution of relief food across the country was in view of the ongoing devastating drought said to have affected 78 districts.

Tembo told journalists in Lusaka on Tuesday that under normal rainfall conditions, people would have started harvesting food from their fields by this time of the year.

He stated that the fact that there was no food in their fields due to the drought meant that people had already started starving.

“As PeP, we are fully aware of the fact that government has a tendency to sleep on the job regarding emergencies and only act at the last minute when lives have already been lost,” Tembo said.

He alleged that this was what happened during the cholera epidemic where government was asleep when the epidemic was first detected in October 2023.

Tembo accused the government of only acting in January 2024 when the epidemic had reached its peak and hundreds of innocent lives had been lost.

“As Patriots for Economic Progress, we wish to warn government not to sleep on the job this time around,” he said.

Tembo said the blood of any Zambian live that would be lost due to hunger would be on the hands of President Hakainde Hichilema.

He demanded that government should be active through the DMMU, an office under the Vice President in terms of distributing relief food in the next few days.

“The Zambian people deserve to be protected from the ravages of hunger by their government,” the PeP leader stated.

Tembo reminded President Hichilema that this was not the time for long speeches and rhetoric but action in terms of actual delivery of relief food to all affected citizens.

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