PRESS STATEMENT BY ELIAS CHIPIMO, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL RESTORATION PARTY NO MONEY,NO JOBS AND A HIGHER COST OF LIVING: THE REALITY OF LIFE UNDER PF Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said: “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Many voters in 2011 chose to believe what the PF promised to deliver – “more money in your pockets, lower taxes, jobs”. They believed the PF because their words offered hope at a time when frustration with the MMD government had reached an all-time high after 20 straight years in power. So out of a desperate bid to eject the MMD, they chose to believe what was not true. And how things have since changed. In the two years under PF In a space of 2 short years under the PF, our kwacha had tumbled to its lowest level in our history; there are very few decent new jobs to speak of; prices of mealie meal have reached an all-time high and the mismanagement of our economy has meant that instead of Zambians having more money in their pockets, they are left to fiddle around with unwanted coins. To make matters worse, largely as a result of the general lack of clear policy direction and haphazard, unplanned and uncoordinated governance directives, inflation – the rate at which the price of goods and services increase over time – has risen, hitting the poorest hardest. The official statistics do not come close to reflecting just how difficult it has become for people to survive. This can easily be demonstrated through the example of our staple diet, mealie meal. The Poor Studies show that a 25 kilogramme bag of industrially milled maize costs between K75 and K90 (or more depending on which part of the country you are buying it from). What these surveys do not reveal, however, is that the majority of Zambians do not have enough money to buy their monthly mealie meal requirements at one go. Instead, they often have to purchase their staple diet one meal at a time. Being forced to purchase mealie meal in small units (pamela – one standard cup measure at a time) means that the poor spend in total K126 (over Kw50 more) on buying a full bag of mealie meal than those in the middle class who may have enough ready income to purchase a full bag at one time for Kw75.For the poor, the cost of living has become so high that relatively few people can afford to have even one decent meal a day. As a party dedicated to addressing the plight of the vulnerable, we are deeply saddened by the suffering we witness in numerous communities across the country. Let us be clear and frank, there is no spare money in most people’s pockets, costs are constantly going up and the future seems as bleak as ever. Lets stop pretending We could go on pretending, as the PF would want us to do, that all is well; that things will come right and we only need to be patient. We could entertain the idea of refusing to believe what is true and pretend that our national leaders really care about the people. Unfortunately, we see the continued harassment of Opposition leaders. We face, daily, the threat of being ambushed by knife-wielding cadres whenever we walk into a public market or try to reach out to supporters at a public bus stop. We see continued lawlessness against innocent citizens prevail without a word of condemnation from the leadership in power. We are neither fooled nor hopeful of any commitment to the people by the PF. All we see in their style of leadership is a desire to be in power at any price, no matter who gets injured in the process. We strongly urge the PF to be more tolerant of alternative views and to listen to the people. We urge them to consider the wise words of Abraham Lincoln: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”. It is time for us to believe what is true and act upon it. The PF have increased the suffering of the people and desperately undermined the democracy we fought so hard to attain in 1991. Let us not give them any more excuses or reasons to fail the people of Zambia again. Elias Chipimo President National Restoration Party
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 14:16:13 +0000
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