A MUST read: Our response to former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu (Part 2)

It’s said that if you want to hide information away from an African, hide it in a book. The reason is simple……we either have a poor reading culture…..or don’t even bother to read at all!

This is probably the reason why immediate past president, Edgar Chagwa Lungu; typical of him as a sly and cunning politician, finds it convenient for him to sneak in lies and propaganda in his political discourse, every so often, to achieve the objective of deliberately misleading the masses in his quest to bounce back to power using hook or crook!

During his so-called address to the nation the other day, ba Lungu had the following questions for his successor, “What did he find when he assumed office? What was the price of mealie-meal? Fuel? Electricity? Fertilizer?Cooking oil? Sugar? Volatile exchange rate?”

Since it would be folly for the President to waste time responding to such innuendos as he’s focussing on resuscitating an economy which is in a comma, we shall seek to provide answers to the above by providing a comparative analysis of the performance of our economy from the tenure of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), the Patriotic Front (PF) right through to the current administration.

MMD deposed the mighty United Nation Independence Party (UNIP) from power in 1991 on the backdrop of economic malaise, food shortages coupled with sky-rocketing prices of essential commodities.

By the time citizens resolved to seek a ‘divorce’ from MMD and flushed the proverbial “red card” after a union dating back to 2 decades; the Rupiah Bwezani Banda administration would leave behind a buoyant economy – affordable prices of essential commodities, a stronger currency and of course, stable inflation.

Consider the economic outlook below as the country headed towards the 2011 general elections:

The Micheal C. Sata led Patriotic Front (PF) ‘stormed’ the political scene with a convincing slogan: “more money in people’s pockets, more jobs and lower taxes!”

However, barely 10 years in power, citizens had had enough of PF. Caderism, stagnating economy, rampant corruption and gassing of innocent citizens during their sleep etc was too much for them to bear. They would turn-up in record numbers and say “zwaa” to ba Lungu (give him marching orders!)

The following table definitely indicates that ba Lungu left the state of the economy in intensive care…..worse than what they inherited from MMD:

UPND has been at the helm for merely 3 years. The ongoing war in Ukraine which has seen the disruption of supply chains such as crude oil, fertilizer and the grain, and obviously the effect of climate change which has exacerbated power supply hasn’t worked in favour of the Hakainde Hichilema led New Dawn Administration. This has given the opposition, particularly ba Lungu a blank cheque to mercilessly and viciously attack the government or indeed mislead the public that UPND has lamentably failed to meet the aspirations of our people.

However, if we take into account the state of our economy today compared to what they found in place, UPND is definitely on course to take our people to the Promised Land. Consider the prevailing economic environment in our country at the moment:

Finally, we’d like to present to you our esteemed readers a comparative analysis of price increases, exchange rates and state of inflation during the rule of all the 3 regimes. For the record, we must confess we didn’t rely on our own humble wisdom to arrive at these figures. We had to engage an expert, whom we shall simply refer to as Munsanje, to help us work-out the figures and present water tight facts to the public:

As they say, figures don’t lie. We shall leave it upto you dear readers to judge for yourselves as to who really messed-up our beloved nation.

Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
National Coordinator – HH Mpaka 2031 People’s Alliance