PF deputy national chairperson Davies Chama says the newly launched UPND manifesto will not take the opposition party leader, Hakainde Hichilema, to State House.

And Chama has charged that Hichilema is hallucinating by accusing ‘innocent’ people of stealing public money.

Commenting on the recently launched UPND manifesto for 2021 to 2026, Chama said a manifesto was not a vehicle that took people to State House.

He accused the opposition party of studying the PF manifestos over the years.

“I can tell you, 20 years, they have never launched their manifesto. There are a lot of political parties in Africa and in the world who have manifestos but they keep on losing elections. The fact that you have launched a party manifesto does not mean that the manifesto will take you to State House. A manifesto is not a vehicle that takes people to State House. It is the people of Zambia who take people to State House. That same manifesto, someone is even alleging that it is even stolen. It is a ‘catch’ copy, he copied from somewhere. Someone is even alleging that he has stolen it from our previous manifesto. The PF has been producing manifestos from the time it was established and now we are almost clocking 20 years. Every five years we have been producing manifestos. So, he has been studying our manifestos over the years,” Chama claimed.

He further said bigger things were yet to come in terms of transformation under the PF government.

“We will be launching our manifesto very soon which is signed to build up to the previous one. I can tell you, do you know what ‘dyonko’ (tip of the iceberg) is? What we have done in the past 10 years is just dyonko, bigger things are yet to come in terms of transformation of this country. So, Zambia will change beyond recognition. What we have done in the past nine years, we were just setting a foundation. Now we are going to actually start the work to ensure that the transformation of Zambia really starts on a bigger scale. You have not seen anything yet. That Manifesto, it will not take him anywhere. Some politician is actually claiming that he stole the manifesto, he has no manifesto of his own,” Chama said.

Commenting on Hichilema’s remarks that the PF government was offering Zambians money stolen from them, Chama charged that the UPND leader was hallucinating by accusing ‘innocent’ people of stealing public money.

He said Hichilema should be specific and point out who was stealing, and the account the money was being stolen from.

“The man has nothing to say basically because the government has put in place very stringent laws in terms of management of resources of the State. So if someone is stealing money, you should cite specifically… You can’t just continue saying ‘someone is stealing money’, without saying specifically who is stealing and where that person is stealing from. [If] I can call you and say, ‘you are a thief, you are stealing’, but I cannot state where you are stealing, then you know that maybe there is something wrong with me and maybe I just want to scandalise people who are innocent. He should be specific to call and point out which account the money was stolen from, because he is the one making those allegations. He should have concrete evidence,” said Chama.

“He is just saying political rhetoric and he thinks that he can win an election by calling people who are not thieves that they are stealing money, it will not take him to State House. He is the one who always claims that for now we should be propagating politics of issues, but he is the one who wants to call people in government names. We don’t want to sink to his level of low calibre in terms of politicking. I think we want to take politics to another level of transformation, to develop this country. If people have evidence, it is very easy to state [that], ‘from this account money has been stolen, and it has been stolen by this person, the money is being dished out’… There is nothing of that sort. So he is just hallucinating.”