Muchinga Province Minister Sichone Malozo says Zambia is lucky to have a strong opposition party in the UPND which will remain an opposition party beyond 2021.

And Malozo says UPND should join the October 18 National Day of Prayers because the party needs a lot of prayers.

Malozo said this in his debate on the 2020 national budget in Parliament, Thursday evening.

“We are lucky that we have a very strong opposition party in this country which is qualified to be an opposition party and it will remain as an opposition party. The party that will come and take over from PF many years from now is not going to come from them, no. They are a blessing to this country as opposition leaders. This country needs them as opposition leaders,” Malozo said.

“Even as we go into prayers this month, I urge our colleagues from the UPND to join us in prayers because they need prayers more than anyone else. If they cannot come to pray with us and choose to join the Africa Liberal something, the challenges that UPND strongholds are experiencing, will continue. And they will continue to cry using the same voice.”

Malozo said his constituents were confident that President Edgar Lungu would win the 2021 elections.

“Mr Speaker, the people of Muchinga gave me a message that ‘go and tell the politically impotent people that President Edgar Chagwa Lungu is winning again in 2021’. We have an opposition which cannot even up to now agree that there is climate change and the effects of climate change are real. They still want to say ‘because of poor leadership we don’t have water in Kariba Dam’. Are you sure Mr Speaker people will follow them? That’s why the people of Muchinga are saying ‘President Edgar Chagwa Lungu is winning in 2021’,” he said.

Meanwhile, Malozo said the 2020 budget had given a lot of hope to Zambians.

“This budget that we are debating, is a budget that has given hope to a lot of Zambians. There is so much hope in the country, arising from so many areas. Mr Speaker, allow me to define a statement which I would call political impotence. There is so much political impotence in this country and if it was a medical condition, I would have said ‘why don’t we bring in doctors to help us’. Political impotence is the inability to assimilate the possible outcomes of a budget, for example the current budget we are debating, even when you know that indeed great things have been embedded in the budget. For example, if you continue to fail even just to win elections, that is political impotence. Political impotence is also the inability to see projects in your area that are being implemented and you continue crying politically,” Malozo said.

“Apart from political impotence, there is also another statement I would want to define, protracted ego to rule. When Zambians are choosing leaders to succeed a particular government, they normally scrutinize carefully Mr Speaker. In 1991, people chose to change the government of that time and brought in MMD. In 2011, people decided to remove MMD and replaced it with PF. Amidst all these changes, we have had as a country, an opposition party which we may call a major opposition party.”

Malozo charged that because of political impotence, UPND was failing to appreciate the greatness of the 2020 budget.

“Mr Speaker, because of political impotence, we have had situations each time a minister of finance comes to the House to present a budget, people from this political impotent institution, the opposition UPND have always not seen any great thing that comes with any particular budget. For eight years we have been here, we have witnessed several budgets and non of the budgets has been deemed to be a success. However, we have continued to experience massive developmental change in this country,” said Malozo.