LUSAKA Province PF chairman Kennedy Kamba says the money spent on billboards across Zambia’s capital was donated by business people who support the ruling party.

And Kamba has insisted that the opinion polls which have predicted that President Edgar Lungu will emerge victorious in the upcoming election reflects what is on the political ground.

Commenting on revelation by the Transparency International Zambia that PF had spent K4.488 million on campaign billboards in the month of June in Lusaka in an interview, Kamba said the party had business friends who had come on board to help the party.

“So that is surprising to them? They don’t know that the PF government has got business friends who are doing that on behalf of the party? They think that PF has spent that money? The owners of those companies, some of them are supporting PF, we have business men and they are coming up to support the party. It doesn’t mean those billboards, the PF has spent money, no! We have friends in the business community who have come on board to help the party,” Kamba said.

“They want to mislead the country that 4.4 million that was spent on billboards is the money being spent by the PF, so this is corruption. Who told them that money was spent by the PF? We have got our colleagues in the business sector and they are helping in the party. So, it doesn’t mean when they value the billboards across the country and they say we have spent K4.4 million, that money is coming from government, no!”

And commenting on Vernon Mwaanga’s remarks that the “so-called opinion polls” which predict that President Lungu will win the upcoming elections are false and misleading, Kamba said the atmosphere was favouring the PF.

“Vernon Mwaanga has got political inclinations; he has got where he belongs politically. He shouldn’t comment as if he is a neutral Zambian person. Vernon Mwaanga is politically aligned to the UPND. When everything favours PF, Vernon Mwaanga comes out with anger trying to persuade the Zambian people that PF has not delivered, that PF is not going to win. The opinion polls, this is the second one as far as we are concerned, I am just coming from Chirundu, the atmosphere there is favouring PF. The Atmosphere in Kafue is favouring PF,” Kamba said.

“In Lusaka Province we are coming with 1,200,000 out of the seven million registered voters. I can assure that we are going to get not less than 900.000 votes in Lusaka, which is 70 percent. That opinion poll is a clear signal that Hakainde Hichilema is going to be retired this year. It is a clear signal that PF is going to emerge triumphantly as winners in the 12th August elections.”

Kamba said the PF had delivered in all sectors and that the implementation of the debt swap was the “killer punch”.

“As the party we have a lot of things to point at, the energy sector, today as we are speaking, there is no load shedding. People are very happy, those owning barber shops, those who do wielding, those owning saloons, they are very happy. They are working 24/7. Today in the agriculture sector, the PF has delivered, the farmers are being paid. Fertilizer has been distributed countrywide. All countries in the region want to buy our maize. Health sector and the education sector the PF has delivered, so those are the projects which the people of Zambia are going to base on when we go for the polls on the 12th August,” Kamba said.

“So as far as we are concerned, the opinion polls favouring Edgar Chagwa Lungu and the PF government to win has come at the right time. The people of Zambia should turn up in numbers to vote for President Edgar Lungu on 12th August because of what he have done, in terms of uniting this country, in terms of taking care of the civil servants. Today civil servants are not trekking to our neighbouring countries. Nurses and teachers because of the same conditions which we have given them today, they cannot trek. They were given loans to buy cars, today the government of his Excellency Edgar Chagwa Lungu has even gone further to waive the debts. That is a killer punch!”

Kamba said the fact that people were not demonstrating on the streets was an indication that there was no wind of change.

“Today you cannot see civil unrest in the country, people are not demonstrating, civil servants are not demonstrating, there are no strikes, there are no mealie meal queues, there are no commodities where people are queuing to buy cooking oil. There is no unrest in the country, which clearly tells you that things are in order. If there was wind of change today, we could have seen a lot of civil strife in the country, a lot of unrest in the country, a lot of demonstrations in the country, but the country is running quietly and the people of Zambia are very happy with leadership of President Edgar Lungu,” said Kamba.

“Those opinion polls, we know and we support those outcomes because we know that President Lungu is going to win. Mealiemeal here is cheaper than that of Zimbabwe, than that of Malawi, than that of Tanzania. People from these countries want to come and buy from Zambia. This credit goes to President Lungu. So come what may president Lungu is winning.”