NOMINATED member of parliament Mutinta Mazoka says her late husband Anderson Mazoka would have been proud of President Hakainde Hichilema for holding UPND together and providing effective leadership.

Debating in Parliament, Thursday, Mutinta said her late husband would have also been proud to see the party he helped to create form government.

“Had my late husband Anderson Kambela Mazoka been alive today, he would have been very proud to see the political party he helped to create form government. This victory would have meant two things to my visionary husband. It would have confirmed his long-held belief that we live forever when we allow others to complete our work. When he helped to found the UPND in 1998, he told us as a family that his desire was that the party should outlive him. And he would have been proud to see the party he helped to form, win power and form government. But he would have been prouder of his successor President Hakainde Hichilema who helped finance and held the party together, provided effective leadership, upheld its character as a party for national unity and development,” Mutinta said.

“He made enormous personal sacrifices in the interest of the party and the wider public. The UPND victory would have also affirmed my late husband’s faith in the capacity of the Zambian people to rise above narrow or sectional interests in the furtherance of the One Zambia, One Nation motto. I heard in this election, some political players tried to paint the UPND as a regional outfit. The empathic nature of the victory, the fact that President Hichilema won in seven of Zambia’s ten provinces, that is Northern, Lusaka, Copperbelt, Southern, Western, Central and North-Western Provinces and that the party secured parliamentary seats in all provinces except Luapula and Muchinga shows that it is truly a national party. Zambians have embraced the UPND as their party. This would have pleased my late husband.”

Mutinta said Mazoka would have also been proud of the youths for turning out in numbers to cast their votes.

“The same way he would have been extremely proud to see the numbers of people, especially the youths that turned out in large numbers, many for the first time to exercise their right to vote and chart a new direction for their country. Allow me to congratulate President Hakainde Hichilema as Zambia’s seventh elected leader. Having obtained 59 percent of the total votes cast at presidential level. He emerged together with his running mate Madam Mutale Nalumango from the 12th August general elections as the president with the most popular electoral mandate since 1996. His clear victory is a statement to the support and confidence that Zambians have in his leadership and his vision. And in the capacity of the UPND to meet their basic needs and aspirations,” she said.

And Mutinta said President Hichilema’s speech during the official opening of Parliament brings hope to the hopeless.

“Madam Speaker, I must state from the outset that I do support the President’s speech because it brings hope to the hopeless. The President’s speech brought out many issues that it will be impossible for me to debate on all of them. In agriculture, this is a sector that has been grossly mishandled in the past. FISP was not readily available for other people. I will give an example of my former constituency, Pemba, where two bags per farmer were given but those two bags were not guaranteed that they would be for that recipient alone because you would be required to share it with eight others. Now two bags of fertilizer in the region I come from is like an insult, really because we are farmers. Two bags of fertilizer would be for gardening or a teenager who is still learning how to farm. When you give us those two bags, they mean absolutely nothing to us,” she said.

Mutinta further said the effects of corruption could be seen in what had happened to the country.

“Corruption is a curse to any nation that practices it. Unfortunately, we fell into that trap. And you have all seen what has happened to the country, it is about greed. People feel like they are entitled when they are not because this is a national cake that should be shared equitably. Now some people out of greed, they can accumulate so much to themselves and leave the rest with nothing,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mutinta said as the oldest member of parliament, she was ready to offer counsel to the younger parliamentarians.

However, Mambilima PF member of parliament Jean Chisenga said the President’s speech was uninspiring.

“Madam Speaker, I would like to mention that the presidential speech was not enlightening and it was not inspirational especially to me as a youth. Madam Speaker, the youths turned out because they believed in the President, a belief that he would give them jobs, a belief that he would give them meal allowance and free education,” said Chisenga.