Josephs Akafumba has said Zesco Limited’s increased load shedding hours are not a surprise but a reflection of poor planning on the power’s utility’s part and the bad leadership that has caused most of today’s economic problems.
In an interview, Akafumba, the vice-president of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), said the country’s economy has collapsed under President Edgar Lungu’s leadership and has asked the Head of State to resign and allow others to resuscitate it.
“The issue of Zesco is not something that is taking the country by surprise; everyone knew as far as January that we had bad rains and we should have started planning if it was a serious government but the situation got on worse and that is when they are introducing load shedding. The water levels in Kariba are at the lowest level since 1995, are the putting up any measures? The answer is no,” Akafumba said.
“Where from the word go, Edgar Lungu said he had completely no vision. And you know what vision is? Vision is not sight; vision is like destination, like I am going here to Livingstone. So this man is on a journey driving this country to nowhere. So you will not know whether he has by-passed his destination or he has not yet reached. So the consequences are these we are suffering because of poor leadership of President Edgar Lungu. In all fairness, if you go now, retirees have not been paid, the entire government to me has collapsed under the hands of President Edgar Lungu. This is not the PF I belonged to with President Micheal Sata. To save face, President Edgar Lungu and his government should practice good governance by humbly resigning on moral grounds, surrendering the country back to the people for them to choose the leadership that can resuscitate the economy.”
He said the continued “uncaring nature of President Lungu is worrying”.
“All these issues the country is going through now is because of extremely bad leadership by President Lungu and his PF. As we are talking now, he has taken over 30 people to India. That is an uncaring President…[who] in such a situation can say himself is exempted from the problems we are going through,” Akafumba said. “He is a president who, a reputable organisation of the Catholic Church, Caritas, tells him that there is severe hunger in this country, the British government with all its intelligence, they are telling him there is a big problem of hunger and the only way we can help you is if you declare it a disaster in this country [but] this President of ours has the audacity to refuse and to stubbornly answer that there is no hunger and ‘if you want to donate, you can go ahead and donate’.”
He said the levels of scandals in the PF government were alarming.
“How can you have a government of Edgar Lungu which every day, there is a scandal? The appetite of sharing land is worse than that of colonists or those in 1884 who met in Berlin to partition Africa…because wherever they go, they share land. Shibuyunji, they have invaded; Forest 27, they have invaded. What is next? They will soon start getting football grounds for schools….it is alarming really. Where are they taking this land to?” wondered Akafumba.
“The consolation is that their time is up; whether they like it or not. This is the time all Zambians must rally behind NDC with our leader Chishimba Kambwili so that we remove this government. I would compare it to a toothache… the solution to a toothache is not Panadol, it is [extraction]. So 2021, everyone must stand and register and vote enormously to remove these guys.”
One Response
some of us have very problem solving to this power issue but lack support. I blame nobody it’s due to our poor curriculum, my project will benefit the whole country.