PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema has mocked Brian Mundubile’s remarks on the $6.5 billion in the reserves, adding that “people should think before they talk”.

President Hichilema adds that he recognises that citizens are still facing challenges, like the cost of living, and assured an improvement in their lives.

Speak during the official launch of his 2026 campaign at Heroes Stadium, Sunday, President Hichilema said Mundubile had energy to talk “nonsense” because he had seen that the country had $6.5 billion in reserves.

“Today is a special day, we are launching our campaign in a different way, the campaign is taking a different gear. Those who are playing and saying things they don’t understand, they will see for themselves. People must learn to think before they talk, first think properly before you speak, because you will end up saying some things that you don’t understand properly. When we came in 2021, we found a huge debt, we have managed to sort it out, was it HH who acquired the debt or it was other people? Do you know who acquired the debt? Those are [who] are talking nonsense, they are the ones who acquired the debt. Who is better, the one who acquired debt or the one who sorted it out? You acquired debt then you friend solves it, and then you are still talking nonsense. Why are they talking now? They have seen that there is $6.5 billion in reserves, bankala na energy yoenda kukamba vaupuba (they now have the energy to start talking foolishly), saying ‘reserves are useless’,” President Hichilema said.

“Those reserves are a policy insurance, assurance and confidence. If there is a drought in the country, we use the reserves to buy food to feed the people. Now they misused the reserves when they were there. These two boys were ministers in PF, one was a provincial minister in Northern, the other in Eastern, they are the ones who squandered money meant for the country, now they want to come back and eat reserves. I put the reserves in a safe and locked with a key, you won’t see it. The reserves are for Zambians, when there is a drought, we remove part of it and we buy maize and feed people, when there there is a war in the middle east we can use our reserves to support the kwacha, that’s [why] you have seen the kwacha is strong now. Now if we ate the reserves like the way they ate the reserves, the kwacha would have been at K40 per dollar”.

President Hichilema advised Mundubile and his running mate Makebi Zulu to utilise free education.

He added the duo were “salivating” on the $6.5 reserves.

“I have a message for those boys, we have introduced free education, go back to school and you will learn so that you can understand how the economy works. Zambians, don’t go back to problems, let’s go forward. I’m surprised that some people are not well educated, now if you are not well educated how are you going to lead people? Even the Bible says, ‘where there is no knowledge, the people perish’. Am I the one who wrote the Bible? It’s others, you and me we just read. You can see what those boys are looking for. They see the $6.5 billion, they are even salivating saying ‘we want to eat that money,’ you won’t see it, we are reserving it for Zambians,” the President said.

Meanwhile, President Hichilema said he was aware that a lot of citizens needed more support beyond what government was “delivering”.

“Let us be able to discuss with you honestly, that we don’t pretend, that we have worked, yes. We’ve done many things, yes but there is a lot of more work to be done. Life is still challenging for a lot of our people, a lot of our families still need support beyond what we are delivering today. But I want you to know, we hear you, when you complain in your homes, we hear your complaints. We feel the challenges that you feel, we’ll not rest until we continue to improve the lives of our people, we’ll not rest at all,” he said.

“We don’t mind what the ignorant people are saying out there, kukacha chabe, kubwata bwata, kukambakamba zamene zilibe nzelu (early in the morning, they just talk nonsense). We hear, our interest is in you the people, the great majority of the people, our interest is not ba bamukukulu, bapompwe (thieves). We want to say that we’ve laid a very strong foundation since you put us in office…In order to avoid those balebwata bwata, who don’t understand what we are talking about, [recently], I, bally, signed the Bill to make free education into law”.

The President added that the cost of commodities would stabilise due to reduced inflation.

“Now here is our promise, as we have delivered free education, we’ll continue improving. We know the cost of living is still an issue, I am listening, we are listening, we are working. We have cooked nshima, we started by getting firewood, we want to cook food, we got firewood, water and we brought a pot, mealie meal, beans and chicken, then we cooked. What’s remaining for us to eat is just ‘salt sana’. Now that we are waiting for the nshima to be ready and we put salt in relish, then you want to remove the one who brought the firewood, water and food? Shame! We’ve delivered free education, we’ll continue working to lower our cost of living, we know that, we understand that. We know that the price will stabilise as we reduce the increase in the price levels,” said President Hichilema.

“Just to remind you, in June, 2021 before we formed government, the prices of things you know, cooking oil, vegetables and mealie meal, it was increasing at 24.6 per cent, fast in going up. Once we started cooking the things we’ve been cooking, the prices in terms of going up have reduced from 24.6 per cent in June, 2021 to 6.5 per cent in June this year. Others are saying you can’t eat inflation, that’s being dull because if commodity prices are going up quickly and they start increasing slowly.. What’s good? Increasing slowly not so? Let me say to you, we’ll continue to work for the economy, we know that without the economy growing, we cannot keep our children in school, we know that without us investing, we’ll not be able to build more health centres”.