Friday, June 28, 2024

UPND failures accumulate

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By Venus N Msyani

UPND failures have accumulated to the point it is no longer easy to agree on which one is the biggest

Zambians are debating as United Party for National Development (UPND) failures continue to accumulate. The pile has reached a point where it is no longer easy to agree on which failure is the biggest.

To some, monthly fuel price adjustment is the new dawn administration’s biggest failure. To others, the high cost of living, while others think drifting away from promises is the biggest failure.

Many other failures make the debate even more interesting. Failure to move to State House is on a list. President Hakainde Hichilema is hesitating to move to State House.

He commutes from his private home in New Kasama to State House every day, which has added a burden on the government budget. Currently, Zambia is in bad shape economically. Every dollar is needed. Hichilema refusal to move to State House means instead of the country saving the whole dollar, it spends some cents on Hichilema’s commute.

Failure to lead by example in the fight against corruption is another big one. To date, Hichilema has not publicly declared assets and liabilities. To many, this overshadows all other failures.

The fight against corruption is Hichilema’s top agenda. He started with full force, but now he has softened. Every time he tries to be tough in the fight, it reminds people of his failure to publicly declare assets.

Another failure that cannot be ignored is waiting to be reminded to act on laws suffocating Zambia’s democracy. The Public Order Act is as bad as the Defamation of the President law was, but still here. Hichilema appears to be waiting to be reminded to act on it.

He is busy holding rallies in Lusaka and around the country in the name of commissioning and launching development projects, while the opposition is being denied a permit to gather. It cannot be concluded the president is not aware it is a threat to the country’s democracy.

Afraid Zambians will have to go through the same struggle they went through on the Defamation of the President law for the Public Order Act to go. Some may disagree, but very true. If it were not the voice of the people, the Defamation of the President law would still be here.

The arrest and detention procedure is another Hichilema administration’s biggest failures. People continue to spend more than 48 hours in police custody, which is against the law. The same was happening under the previous government. Under the new dawn administration, it has reached a different level.

People are being arrested in abduction style. Police pick suspects up and take them to unknown places. Family and friends have to search for a picked suspect in different police locations until they find him or her. People without families and friends to search for them may be disappearing just like that.
Recently the Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) party leader Sean Tembo was arrested for hate speech. It took about 24 hours for the family and friends to locate where he was being kept.

All these failures make it no longer easy for Zambians to agree on which one is the biggest failure. And the point is, if President Hichilema has failed he should step down.

30 COMMENTS

  1. FUEL FAILURE…?? Then best the GRZ Increases the price to K40 Per Litre and leave it there for a while
    Instead of following the popular route taken by many countries

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    • History can’t repeat itself!Who killed President Levy Mwanawasa?
      Watch “ED MNANGAGWA Is Accused Of Sponsoring Lungu To Topple HAKAINDE HICHILEMA |Mbalula Is A Cancer To Zim” on YouTube
      Our memories are still fresh about the loss of Mwanawasa, as chair of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), was one of the first regional leaders, together with the past and current presidents of Botswana, to openly criticise Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s policies.

    • UPND biggest failures
      Failure to halt Kwacha depreciation
      Failure to give us a plan for recovery (Pure Chimbwi)
      Failure to sell the Challenger
      Failure to enter State House
      Failure to revive the Copperbelt-Luanshya is still a dead town, Ndola-Mufulira road is still impassable
      Failure to imprison Lungu for plenty of corruption
      Failure to guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of assembly
      Failure to unbrainwash the citizens
      Failure to remove Mnangagwa from Harare State House
      Failure to have an articulative Govt Spokesperson
      Failure to shut up Nakacinda, Sean Tembo and Fred Mmembe
      Failure to resist the temptation for overseas trips
      Failure to…..Eish there are just so many failures!

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  2. Well articulated article. At this point it becomes very difficult to see any good thing at all. WE need magnifying glasses. Conclusion: UPND was never ready to govern even though they spent decades in opposition. But this was very evident even before 2021.

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    • Mr. President,
      Unless you say you having nothing to do with the arrest of Sean Tembo !
      The cost of living is another BIG One!
      Fuel, Food, Utilities, just to mention a few ! What’s going on sir.
      You started well by traveling commercial to traveling light and so many other things. Just what happened.

    • Some of us are neither PF nor UPND , so to think that any one who sees the mistakes of this government is PF is not there, all Zambians are affected by the wrongs being committed by the ruling government in fact we are the majority citizens in the country .
      You cannot call every Zambian PF that is where you are wrong and it is the same common citizens who will remove you from power , so don’t so much pay attention to PF but to the common citizens

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    • The majority complaining are pf cadres. If you are truly not a pf cadre then why does my comment affect you so much?

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  3. ok to be honest things are not ok and this is very serious and it deserves an urgent solution to this mess.All areas of human life in zambia is unbearable and IMF is now happy watching from the terraces.

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  4. Well what about the many successes they have also achieved i.e. unbiased recruitment into government, the removal of cadres from everywhere, the increase in money paid to small scale farmers supplying maize, the balanced cabinet and top Civil service, No loadshading, etc

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  5. Most if not all countries have many problems. So developed countries have one or two problems? Cost of living is global, to borrow from Bulldozer’ when he was in power.

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  6. The failures are nothing in comparison to what was happening under PF especially in ECL’s second term of office, the corruption at the level of cadres in bus stations, market places and even up to State House with the likes of Findlay is beyond comparison.

    Second hand faulty Fire tenders were bought at $1million each and there were 5 of them. Have you all forgotten???

    PF and MMD govts are the two regimes that brought this beautiful country to economic ruin, MMD started it and PF who were tasked to repair the situation messed it up after starting well with Sata.

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  7. And which one is the biggest lie?

    1. We have not given KCM to Vandeta
    2. The dollar will come down
    3. Price of fertilizer
    4. Price of Mealie Meal
    5. Price of fuel

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  8. shame its very difficult for some to realise politics of appeasement is no more
    also none run viable businesses so they will never understand the outside influences and exchange control has on commodities which affects ommodity pricing here

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  9. As long as we keep on complaining about GRZ without working do not expect a miracle to happen. All the world economies are driven by entrepreneurs not governments, the job of GRZ is to provide enabling environment to do business. Look at America the revenue generated by tech companies can pay the Zambian debts and even pay all Zambians free salaries for 10 years.

    Please leave social media go back to work you are equipped with degrees, then use that knowledge to discover new products and services that will help to solve the current problems we have.

    Never call these challenges as problems, these are clear opportunities, if you solve one or two you can be a billionaire.

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    • ……….

      These are the same people who will buy a factory warehouse and convert it into a church so that they can pray for jobs…….

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  10. Fuel is what pains the most. Surely, we needed to have at least 3 months reserves to cater only for drastic global increases in fuel. How can you call yourselves good managers of the country resources if all you do is announce price changes without solutions to adverse prices? I feel we are on auto pilot as a country since we have no solutions to what the rest of the world brings to us.

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  11. No more subsidies and free costly tricks. Time to work and sacrifice for your country. If it is too hard for you then pack up and leave or end your life. Not everyone can hack life

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  12. The Supreme leader Ayatollah Hakainde Hichilema is a Politician…and what do Politicians do……??? like Kaunda used to say…lie in the morning…lie in the afternoon and lie in the evening …even here in the USA things are messed up…crime is on the rise…things are getting very expensive…homeless camps everywhere especially on the West Coast….

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  13. @ Spaka
    You’re 100% right when it comes to “prayers” and Africans…..they even start meetings with prayers…..and closing meetings with “prayers”…..mixing religion with business….even in sports in Zambia they “pray” to win as opposed to talent and training…..so do they assume that everyone that attends their meetings is a Christian because they always end up their prayers with “in Jesus name”….

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  14. @ TIKKI
    lies have short legs…remember you were celebrating the Tazama pipeline and the so called Lobito pipeline and HH even went to Angola to commission what????…what has changed now because you said these two projects are capable of bringing fuel price down…

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  15. Biggest failure is failure to move on. They are still in campaign mode. And revenge is priority number 1.
    Economy is ever going down. They have poor policies on taxes and current Ministers seem to leave everything to one super person to manage.

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