JUST pack your bags and prepare to go because you have failed to fix the economy even after being offered advice, UPND secretary general Batuke Imenda has told the Patriotic Front leadership.

Imenda was commenting on PF chairperson for legal affairs Brian Mundubile’s remarks in which he said the prevailing economic challenges presented an opportunity for the UPND to offer alternative solutions, but they had failed to do so because they were also clueless.

He said the most honourable thing that the PF could do was to admit that they had failed to run the country.

“The most honourable thing the PF can do is to simply admit that they have failed to run this country instead of issuing a blanket statement that no one has solutions to this regime’s self-inflicted problems. It is time for them to pack and go. It is hypocrisy of the highest degree for the PF regime to claim that the UPND has no solutions to Zambia’s economic disaster when they are on record as publicly rejecting all our advice. It is public knowledge that whenever we, and our president, Mr Hakainde Hichilema, have offered the PF advice in good faith, they have insulted and accused us of being bitter. We, therefore, find it laughable that PF minister Brian Mundubile can today stand on a rooftop and say we have never publicly offered solutions to the mess his government has driven our country into. We are glad that Mr Mundubile admits that Zambia is in a crisis and yet the same PF party he belongs to has been boasting that it has done very well economically,” Imenda said.

He said the only way Zambians were going to prove UPND’s worth was by rejecting PF on August 12 and replacing it with ‘a focused UPND leadership’.

“The PF are being economical with the truth when they claim the current economic position in the country is genuine. Mr Mundubile further challenges us that the current economic mess affords us a chance to prove that we can provide solutions. When, as an opposition party, you offer your advice and it is rejected, that is only as far as you can go because you are not in government yet for you to implement the policies you have in your blueprint,” he said.

“If a striker in a game of football has been given five matches within which to score goals and yet he is failing, he cannot claim that even the player on the substitute’s bench has no solutions to shooting past the opposing goalkeeper. It is now time for our coach, the Zambian people to call us, the UPND, from the bench and place us in a scoring position for our country. The only way the Zambian people are going to prove our worth is by rejecting this failed PF project on August 12 and replacing it with a focused UPND leadership that will put in place sound economic policies to extricate the country from its current quagmire.”

Imenda pointed out that COVID-19 could not be used as a scapegoat for poor economic management.

“While we agree that Covid-19 has negatively affected the economic complexion of nearly every country in the world, it cannot be used as a scapegoat for poor economic management as in the case of this PF group of misleaders masquerading as leaders. Did we not advise the PF against excessive debt borrowing? Did they listen? Did we not advise the PF against issuing Eurobonds? Did they listen? Did we not predict that the PF would default on the Eurobond? Did they not label us bitter? Did we not advise the PF against over-spending borrowed money on over-inflated infrastructure? Did they listen? Did we not call for transparency in the utilization of COVID-19 donations? Did they listen? Where are we now?” questioned Imenda.