RAINBOW Party general secretary Wynter Kabimba says the President’s decision to redesignate the Home Affairs Ministry to Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security is a sign of ignorance on his part.

In an interview, Kabimba argued that the redesignation changed nothing because in its old form, the Ministry of Home Affairs was in charge of internal security.

He said in a bid to show Zambians that UPND was a new dawn government, President Hakainde Hichilema was resorting to “petty issues of projecting himself as a new broom that sweeps better”.

“It is regarding this redesignation of the Ministry of Home Affairs to Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security which changes nothing in this world. President Hichilema during his campaigns against the PF, one of the pillars of his campaigns was that he was going to ensure that there is no extravagance or unnecessary expenditure when he takes up office in government. He would make sure that the fiscal policy of the UPND government, the policies will be strong, in order to preserve financial resources which according to his argument, the resources that were being unnecessarily and irresponsibly spent by the PF government. The argument made a lot of sense at the time when he was in the opposition. To my disappointment, he is doing exactly what he was accusing PF about,” Kabimba said.

“In his bid to show the Zambian people that this is a new dawn government, he is resorting to petty issues of projecting himself as a new broom that sweeps better. And one such incident is the redesignation of the Ministry of Home Affairs, it changes nothing because Home Affairs in the form in which it was is in charge of internal security. So it is tautologous to redesignate it as Ministry of Home Affairs and internal security. It actually shows ignorance on the part of the man as President. And this is one of the accusations levelled against him when he was in the opposition, that he has no experience about government. And he is just proving right those of us who levelled these accusations.”

Kabimba said the redesignation would lead to changing of letterheads, an exercise he said would be costly.

“In the United States, the Ministry of Home Affairs is known as Homeland Security, the minister in charge is known as secretary of Homeland Security, it is in charge of internal security. In other countries, it is known as the Ministry of Interior. There was absolutely no need for this redesignation. What it will do is to make government spend money changing the letterhead of the Ministry of Home Affairs and you know how many departments it covers. It will be a colossal amount of money. The signages for the Ministry of Home Affairs have to change, was that necessary? Is that how Mr Hichilema wants to show us that he is working? We don’t want to expend our energies and breath arguing with him on trivialities,” he said.

Kabimba said the Head of State should fulfil what he promised the Zambian people.

“We want him to get on with serious work so that we can see how he is going to sustain the campaign promises he made to the Zambian people. Redesignation of the Home Affairs ministry doesn’t change the lives of the Zambian people, it doesn’t improve the lives of the Zambian people, it doesn’t create employment for the youths. It doesn’t put food on the table of those that are going hungry or those that can afford one meal a day and it doesn’t take the children to school. So it achieves absolutely nothing. We want President Hichilema to get on with the work, we want him to fulfill the promises he made to the Zambian people, that he is going to improve their living standards,” he said.

“Trying to create new palaces for government ministries or departments doesn’t show that the man is serious with his work. So my challenge to him is that, let him stop this petty approach to the responsibilities of his office. Let him understand the burden on his shoulders which the Zambian people have placed on him and which he voluntarily asked the Zambian people to place on him. We challenge him when he comes back from the UN General Assembly to show that what he promised the Zambian people has started to bear fruits. So far, we have seen nothing.”

Meanwhile, Kabimba argued that the induction ceremony for ministers was not new.

“Parading his ministers at Mulungushi International Conference Centre at the induction ceremony to show that this is the new dawn era achieves nothing. Even PF did that. So the argument from the UPND that ‘this is unprecedented, it has never happened in the history of this country’ just shows that we have blind people in the UPND government, it has been done before. MMD did it, PF did it, so there was nothing new that they did a few days ago. And that in itself will not prevent corruption in the government of Mr Hichilema,” said Kabimba.