WHATS YOUR TAKE COMRADES? Youth and Sports Minister Chishimba Kambwili has said that it is not government’s responsibility to pay tuition for university of Zambia students. Speaking when he phoned in on a discussion program of UNZA Radio Tuesday, Kambwili said it was the responsibility of parents to pay for their children as government only creates an enabling environment because they have limited resources. “It is not the responsibility of government to educate people, its the responsibility for their parents because government has limited resources and providing bursaries is unsustainable , it can twork the world over,” Kambwili claimed. But United Party for National Development (UPND) president Hakainde Hichilema’s adviser Douglas Siakalima pointed out that the Patriotic Front (PF) government removed subsidies on fuel and maize on the pretext that they wanted to use the money on improving the social sector through better infrastructure but wondered why the government was borrowing heavily for the same projects and questioned where the money served went. Siakalima reminded Kambwili to read the PF manifesto which promises free education from grade one to grade twelve yet they have failed to do this. “When these characters removed subsidies they said they wanted to use the money on the social sector but the infrastructure they are saying is from borrowed money, so where is the money they removed from fuel and maize subsidies?” Siakalima wondered. Siakalima said had there been progression in creation of bed space at the University of Zambia from 1966, the institution should have had 42,000 bed spaces by 2014. But former UNZASU president Vincent Chaile expressed disappointment with Kambwili’s statement and wondered why he should be called ‘honourable’ when his reasoning leaves much to be desired. Chaile said the problem with the PF government was that all solutions to everything depend on the President in State House. And Hichilema stated that the Patriotic Front government views education as a cost, and that governments’ failure to provide bursaries was a result of lack of leadership. Kambwili however chipped in through a call after Hichilema said Kambwili was looking for talk time to call the programme and said Hichilema’s dreams can only come true in Jupiter because other government priority areas would suffer if government paid bursaries for all students. Over 4,000 out of the 6,000 first year students have not been given bursaries and may be on the streets if government maintains that they haveno money.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 06:22:55 +0000
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