Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Services Permanent Secretary Chanda Kasolo has called on well-wishers, who want to help Zambia avert a hunger crisis, to freely do so through the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) under the Office of the Vice-President.

And Kasolo has urged politicians to keep politics out of the country’s looming hunger crisis and allow technocrats do their job.

Speaking when he featured on a “Special Interview” on ZNBC, Thursday afternoon, Kasolo noted that government would gladly receive any help because it operated an open-door policy.

Last week, President Edgar Lungu invited any interested party, who were touched by the hunger situation in some parts of Zambia to make donations after British High Commissioner to Zambia Fergus Cochrane-Dyet said the hunger situation in some parts of the country was worrying and needed urgent mitigating measures to prevent loss of life.

“…We have enough food! We are happy to actually receive any help from anyone. We don’t have a Berlin Wall surrounding Zambia to say ‘you can’t brig help!’ You can bring help anytime and we will gladly receive it through DMMU,” Kasolo said.

And he called on politicians to keep politics out of the country’s looming hunger crisis and allow technocrats do their job.

“There are a number of lessons: number one is, can we keep plotics out of disaster situations, that is very important because politics are very destructive. They actually caused our civil servants not to work properly on what they were doing because they panicked! ‘Who distributed gaga (maize bran) to this place?’ Who did what, when it was very clear that the government position is that we feed the animals as well as the people because the animals provide support system to every family in Southern Province, for instance. If their animals died, that would be a disaster not just to them, but the economy of Zambia,” said Kasolo.

“I urge politicians, please, stay away from this issue. Leave it to us technocrats, if we go wrong, criticize constructively because we are here to make sure that our brothers and sisters in Southern Province, in Western Province, in Eastern Province and other parts like Lunga in Luapula Province where they had floods, we should make sure that they are fed and they don’t die of hunger.”