Lusaka Province Police Commissioner Nelson Phiri has warned that if the UPND goes ahead with their planned tour tof Kafue on Tuesday, they will be met “head-on” by the police.

But UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema has insisted that the party will go ahead with the planned tour and wondered why the PF government was hindering their plans to supplement government efforts in alleviating poverty.

And in a letter dated September 20, 2019, Station Inspector for Kafue Mox Mudimina suggested that the party schedule their planned tour to a later day, citing security concerns in the area.

“I would like to advise that you put off the planned exercise to a later day. The police are currently monitoring the security concerns involving the closure of the council secretary’s office and monitoring outcome of the just-ended delimitation exercise, which the Electoral Commission of Zambia conducted a few days ago. Your exercise is absolutely important and we cannot have it under prevailing situation above,” insisted Mudimina.

And Commissioner Phiri cautioned the UPND against their planned trip to Kafue, saying they would be met “head-on” by police.

“The regulating officer has given the reasons and it ends there. If they go, we will meet them head on!” warned Phiri.

But UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema insisted that the party will go ahead with the planned tour, Tuesday, and wondered why the PF government hindered their efforts to supplement government efforts in alleviating poverty.

He stated that the visit to Kafue was meant to assess the extent of the current hunger situation and lobby for more resources locally, regionally as well from the international community.

“We are scheduled to visit Kafue’s Soloboni township tomorrow (Tuesday) and offer our help to vulnerable members of our communities from our own little resources. Other than being interactive visits of our citizens, these tours are also meant for us to assess the extent of the current hunger situation in the country so that we can lobby for more resources locally, regionally and to the international community. We are peaceful citizens and so out of respect and courtesy, we notified the police of our intention to tour and offer help in Kafue, though we know we have the fundamental rights to be wherever we want to be under our rights and freedoms of movement and association,” stated Hakainde.

“As you can see, our efforts to help our downtrodden citizens around the country are being hindered by the PF regime in their usual style of abusing our men and women in uniform, who are having to cope with unnecessarily duties of preventing us to visit our people. And yet, these are the same people who have been calling us to compliment government efforts in alleviating poverty in our communities. These people of Soloboni in Kafue, like many other hungry citizens, need some form of relief assistance from government or, indeed, from individuals like ourselves and business entities. It is our considered view that tomorrow’s (Tuesday) charitable programme in Kafue goes ahead uninterrupted as we cannot wait for lives to be lost due to hunger before we are moved to act. And since the PF are blocking us from assisting our citizens, they should immediately move in and give our people food and other relief assistance.”