Chiengi Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) member of parliament Given Katuta has warned Lusaka residents against believing Bowman Lusambo’s lies that the ruling party has stopped making fake campaign promises.

And Katuta has lamented that the only means of survival in Zambia at the moment is to become a Patriotic Front (PF) cadre.

In an interview, Katuta observed that the PF was incapable of fulfilling any of its promises due to lack of resources.

“What Lusambo was saying were total lies, the question is, why do you promise when you have an election? Why not effect what your mandate is? I once lived in Mutendere and all the governments have just been promising and promising… if you go down Mosi-o-Tunya Road in Woodlands, you will see people coming from Chilenje crossing that busy road to go and fetch water from the other side where there is a Shopping Mall coming up. You mean all this time, the PF government was not aware that people in Chilenje had challenges with water? I just urge the voters to wake up and give a proper signal to this government. We’ve had successful governments, which at least did something for the people. MMD laboured so much to bring development to people. After 20 years they became pompous, now we have PF, which has not even laboured to bring development, but has laboured to divide the country, PF has laboured to inflict pain on Zambians! PF has laboured to bring fear in Zambians that they cannot speak. If you try to remind them of their work then you are an enemy of the state,” Katuta complained.

She insisted that Lusambo, who is also Lusaka Province Minister, lied about the fake promises, wondering how he had the audacity to stand at a pulpit in Church and issue false pronouncements.

“Bowman Lusambo lies; and I wonder why he would even go to these churches, especially the Pentecostal churches, and stand on their pulpit and tell lies! I am so disappointed with the Church because they’ve allowed this. Churches are supposed to be in the forefront saying, ‘you are a liar, don’t come in our churches and try to convince our congregates to say vote for us’. I have seen them (PF) going round the churches. It’s a pity; the churches have been turned into what I would call beer-halls. Anyone can walk into the Church just like they do with bars, it’s [like] they are no longer churches. We have seen these PF leaders who cannot even intercede for a second, but they are able to intercede when the World Bank says, ‘we are not giving you the money’, that is when they turn up to the very people they’ve inflicted with pain, hardships and fear. Just look at the way they move, they like moving with people who look like thugs in the name of security and whoever tries to talk, they will shut him up,” Katuta said.

“The truth of the matter is that the PF government is broke and this Bowman Lusambo should stop misleading the people of Lusaka, and if the people of Lusaka can get this, let them wake up! PF is promising to improve their water situation in this Mayoral campaign, but where will they get the money to fix that problem overnight when they’ve even failed to give Chiengi water where we have a lot of rivers. What more in Lusaka where they have to get water from the sewers or Kafue River or wherever else they get the waters from. I pray that the voters realise that they are being lied to. Look at the issue of street vendors; why today would they believe that the government is being kind to them?”

And Katuta lamented that the only means of survival in Zambia is to become a PF cadre.

“The problem we have now is that in order for someone to survive then you have to be a PF cadre, which is very wrong and it is sending fear into Zambians. No one can talk now; if you try to talk, then they will arrest you. If you are a businessman they will shut down your business and if you are a contractor, they will get away your contracts… where are you going?” asked Katuta.

“This PF government tells us that all contracts have been cancelled in the construction [industry] and that they will only attend to projects, which are 80 per cent completed and above. After they are done with those projects, then that’s when they will go to those around 50 or 60 per cent and above. But we are only left with about two years and if you look at the debt that we have, the reason why Finance Minister [Margaret Mwanakatwe] had to cancel these contracts is because we are almost at the place where our debt is equal to the economy of the country. They might deny it and try to sugar-coat it, but the economy of the country is US $23 billion and we have debt amounting to US $19 billion. So, it makes me sad to see that the majority of our people don’t seem to understand the pain that PF has caused them! The PF are like a parent who gets a sugarcane, whips the child with the same sugarcane, and later on make the child to eat the same sugarcane so that the child can think that he’s a good parent.”