PF NATIONAL youth chairman Antonio Mwanza says if the UPND government does not want to be criticised, they can resign so that the country goes for an early election.

And Mwanza says the UPND are in for a rude shock because they thought running a government is the same as running a political party.

In an interview, Mwanza said it was worrying that the UPND and their supporters, especially on Facebook, do not want to be criticized on account that it was too early.

“…they knew that all these were lies and they knew that they cannot do all things but they went ahead to make all these pronouncements in order to hoodwink the Zambian people. What is worrying is that the UPND and their supporters especially on Facebook do not want to be criticised. They are telling Zambians that do not criticise us because it is too early. There is no time frame because your criticism starts the very day that you get the instruments of power. If UPND does not want to be criticised, they can as well resign. The entire government can resign and we go for early elections. You cannot tell people that ‘do not criticise us, allow us to be doing things in any way we want and you have no rights as Zambians to criticise us’, no,” Mwanza said.

“This is a democracy and the Zambian people reserve the right to critically analyse everything that UPND is doing and saying. The citizens of Zambia reserve that right to hold them accountable. So UPND insisting that they should not be criticised because it is too early is unacceptable. The UPND insulted everyone who criticises them on social media. That shows that UPND is intolerant to divergent views and it shows that they are dictatorial and they do not want the Zambian people to hold them accountable. We challenge them if they do not want criticism, let them resign because this is a democracy. This is not autocracy where people can be shut down and they are telling us that we should not criticize them, no. If they do not want to be criticised, let them resign.”

And Mwanza said the UPND were in for a rude shock because they thought running a government was the same as running a political party.

“Clearly if you listened to Mr Mweetwa, it is very clear that first of all, UPND did not know what government entails. They thought that running a government is the same as running a political party and now they are in for a rude shock. They have realized that first of all, running a government is completely different from running a party or private business. UPND were advised by the Zambia Air Force. The Zambia Air Force issued an official statement to state that the presidential jet was not for sale because it was a property of the Zambia Air Force,” Mwanza said.

“If UPND were sincere when the Zambia Air Force issued that statement, we expected the UPND at that time should have issued a statement to say ‘we now have been corrected and we will not sell the jet’ but they went ahead and defended their innuendo that they will sell the jet because they did not mean well. It is not that UPND did not know. UPND knew because the Zambia Air Force issued a statement to tell them that the presidential jet cannot be sold because it is a property of the Zambia Air Force. They were told but they kept on to that lie because they wanted to use lies and populist promises to win the elections. They knew that they could not do it but they went ahead and defended it.”

Mwanza said UPND peddled lies in their campaign promises to hoodwink Zambians and win an election based on lies.

“It is the same with the issue of free education. We insisted that the numbers do not add. First of all, you need to look at how many schools do we have? How many students do we have? How many schools do you need to build to absorb the students that have come of age? How much money do you need to pay all the teachers? They knew these things that the numbers do not add and you cannot do it. But they continued to peddle lies to hoodwink the Zambian people and win an election based purely on lies and populist agenda. It is the same issue to do with electricity tariffs. They knew that the government of the Patriotic Front had been subsidizing electricity tariffs to cushion the cost of electricity for the people of Zambia,” said Mwanza.

“They knew that government has been doing that but they went ahead and said they will reduce the electricity prices. Today in that speech that the President read he was saying ‘we want to have electricity to be cost-reflective’. The term cost-reflective, this phrase simply means that you need to pay more than the cost of electricity for you to make a profit. Paying more than the cost of electricity for you to make a profit is what the government wants to do and it simply means increasing the electricity tariffs. That is the simple explanation of the cost-reflective tariff. It means that it is a tariff that takes into account the actual money that you spend on producing one ounce of electricity per hour and then you add on top of that the profit that you need to make, which currently ZESCO is not doing as government is subsidizing.”