People’s Party president Mike Mulongoti says the Cholera excuse for government’s failure to reopen the University of Zambia and Copperbelt University in not genuine because students hostels have always been inhabitable.

In an interview with News Diggers! Mulongoti said it was strange for the Minister of Higher Education to come out as though she didn’t know the number of students enrolment before.

“We need to give confidence to our children who are going to colleges and schools that there is hope for them. The Copperbelt University and the University of Zambia have not opened to date. In the meantime they are finding cholera as an excuse. As if before cholera there was no need to rehabilitate and make those hostels habitable. They also want to pretend that the number of students who occupy the hostels was unknown to them. But they knew all along; students enrolment is known. All the students that are enrolled at the university are known. So why are they blaming the failure to reopen on Cholera,” Mulongoti wondered.

“Mr Lungu was busy flying all over the world instead of spending time to deeply analyse the problems. This is because deep thinking is not easy. You need to spend time to think deeply about how you are going to solve problems of the country. But when you choose to be flying all over the world as if that’s where solutions will be found, a country can’t develop.”

Mulongoti said if he happened to form government, he would ensure food was available on people’s tables.

“So if we take over, the first priority will be to repair the economy. Secondly, to ensure that food is available at the table. With food people’s thinking is quite rational. The health facilities are not stressed in the sense that when your nutrition is more, you are not prone to disease. But the minute your nutrition is poor, you are a potential hospital case. And because of that, we will attend to your nutrition, education and employment so that the people of Zambia can be sure that you are delivering for them,” said Mulongoti.

“We will fight corruption like we will fight hunger because we know that where we have corruption its very difficult to help the country. Hunger and corruption are just as bad. This is why poverty is as good as slavery. We must move away from pretending that we are making lives of people happy when all we are doing is running our pockets for ourselves. It is very unfortunate. We will also ensure that all those who have taken from the people give back.”