Lusaka Province Minister Japhen Mwakalombe says when UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema becomes president, the opposition will chase investors the way he is doing to the PF.

And Mwakalombe says Lusaka Mayor Wilson Kalumba’s idea of getting K10 garbage collection levy from people’s phones is not yet government policy.

Speaking at a PF Interactive Forum on Sunday, Mwakalombe, who is also Chongwe PF member of parliament, asked HH to be truthful.

“Where is the loyalty to his country? Where is the loyalty to the people who voted? He has got a very big number of people who voted. We cannot have a situation where as a country we are looking for investments to come into the country and other people are chasing people away deliberately. Tomorrow, you become a president and it will be the same because what you are doing to others is what will happen to you also. So I am appealing to HH’s conscience to say when you are going to engage people, engage them truthfully, speaking on something that is happening,” Makalombe said.

“For instance surely we are all Zambians, have you ever seen in Zambia police go into parliament? But the person who is aspiring to be president goes to South Africa, leaves his own people that he is supposed to be talking for, he goes all the way to South Africa to go and talk about our Parliament is not independent and police go inside. Surely, even if you want to attract attention, surely, even if you want to attract sympathy or those who are funding you, can you go to an extent of saying something which has never existed? Zambia is bigger than all of us. It is unfortunate that we want to go into political offices at all cost. Our friends in Europe, they resign as president when they lose elections, they put integrity ahead of everything that they do and that has been our culture as Zambians, we have KK, he is living there, he is not a rich money but he has a big name. How can someone at a level of HH go to South Africa and start speaking things like that? Why can’t he dwell his energies on how he can organize his party? Why can’t he go to the markets and go to the people who are poor and suffering? Opposition doesn’t mean you have to be antagonistic or disagree with everything. In opposition, when your friend does well, you should be able to say ‘this is right’, when it is wrong, you say ‘this is wrong’, that is the only way you win.”

Mwakalombe also said it was unfortunate that politics had overshadowed development in Zambia.

“It is very unfortunate that in Zambia today, politics have gone to an extent of hating each other based on Zambia, because of the political party that you belong…I felt that politics, you offer yourself to the people and people vote for you. I have never seen any person in this world that has ever fought or attempted to kill a person because he is a garden boy, I have never. As politicians we say we are servants of the people but today people hate each other with a passion, to go an extent to create a story which does not exist to paint the other player black. It is very sad. And it is very unfortunate. Today in Zambia, politics is what attracts people’s attention, we are diverting from development to politics,” he said.

Mwakalombe urged Zambians not to forget about the liberation struggle.

“The day we are conceived from our mother’s wombs, we are conceived as Zambians. In Zambia when one is sick, we do not laugh, when one is mourning, we mourn with them and this has been the nature of Zambians, to be patriotic, you may wish to note that the suffering of our forefathers, what they went through to attain the independence that we are enjoying today has eroded in our minds, perhaps because we were not there, the majority of us. But the history is very clear…yes, because we have not experienced it, we think it is a simple issue which we can brush aside and ignore. But we are not being loyal, we are not honoring people who sacrificed for this independence,” said Mwakalombe.

And Mwakalombe said he was yet to meet Kalumba to discuss garbage collection modalities.