ACTING PF president Given Lubinda says PF members should brace themselves for more arrests and raids because UPND’s appetite for vengeance is not ending now.

And Lubinda has insisted that PF achieved nothing by lifting Rupiah Banda’s immunity apart from “humiliating the man”.

At a press briefing, Wednesday, Lubinda said UPND’s appetite for vengeance and retribution was not ending.

“As citizens you will be aware that many of our members and those associated with the PF have either had their homes raided by investigative wings of government, and all of them have been summoned to answer to all sorts of accusations. We are certain that the appetite for vengeance and retribution by the UPND shall not end here. Therefore, I would like to appeal to all members of the Patriotic Front, let us brace ourselves in the difficult times in which we find ourselves. We shall be raided, we shall be summoned, we shall be investigated but remain steadfast. For the sake of bringing members of the public, local and international, we shall make sure that on a weekly basis, we keep updating the nations on these raids and arrests,” he said.

When asked whether his party would report the raids to some international human rights bodies, Lubinda responded in the affirmative.

“Are we going to inform international human rights bodies and extra judicial killings? We learnt with sadness the killing of two young men in Mandevu and the member of parliament for Mandevu did issue a statement in which he was asking the police to explain the circumstances in which those two youths were killed. The affliction of pain on any person without the due process of the law is a violation of a person’s right. We are compiling this list together with this list we are also compiling pictures of the numerous atrocities on our members. We are doing that for three purposes; (1) soon we have to use those records and we will use them locally and international; (2) it is because we may forgive but certainly we shall not forget, we want this to be a reminder to us the PF that if the Zambian people are duped into electing people who are vindictive, the result is pain; the third reason is that we want to keep that as a reminder to future generations. We shall certainly do whatever it means to make sure that these atrocities are laid bare,” Lubinda said.

And Lubinda said insisted that it was regrettable that Banda’s immunity was removed because that didn’t achieve anything.

“Progressive people are those who say leave the past behind, let’s move forward. Some of you members of the press will recall me saying that yes there were things that PF did which we regret having done. Talking about the presidency I did indicate that I personally and on behalf of my party PF, we regret this tendency that every successful President is encouraged by surrogates to remove the immunity of their predecessor. I gave an example of RB himself, it was sad that we removed RB’s immunity, but this is water under the bridge. Whatever we did when we removed RB’s immunity, what did we achieve? Except for humiliating the man?” he said.

Lubinda also said it was unfortunate that UPND was calling for constitutional reforms when they failed to participate in the process during PF’s tenure.

“While we acknowledge that the ECZ have the right to make decisions of this nature based on the laws governing elections, we are perturbed by the inconsistencies of ECZ on the matter. Some of you, your newspaper carried a story that the spokesperson of the ECZ on Saturday 8th January stated that the elections shall proceed notwithstanding the withdrawal of the UPP candidate. That story was issued on Saturday, on Monday, the position of the ECZ suddenly changed. What we can say is that the cancellation of the by elections comes with [consequences], people have already started discussing reforms of the constitution. Surprisingly, they are the ones who are being very loud on lacunas in the constitution and are the ones who said to the PF that leave the Constitution as it is, now all of the sudden they have seen lacunas…When it suits them it is good. Whether or not UPND had a hand in it shall be seen by how they handle the by elections going forward. Soon it shall be very clear as who has been the beneficiary of the cancellation. Things don’t happen by accident,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lubinda projected that the fuel price was bound to increase by the end of January.

“We asked the new dawn government to come clean and clarify their accusations that under the PF government, a cartel was taking every K3 from every litre of fuel and to further explain which cartel is now taking the extra K9 now that the price is K21. News Diggers! Let them come out clean and explain. Instead of addressing this important matter, the new dawn or is it called the new down, played to the gallery by insinuating that we confessed having been stealing K3 per litre. Why hasn’t the government of people who pretend to be angels reduced the price by at least K3? Instead they have gone ahead to increase the cost of fuel by 30 percent,” said Lubinda.

“Our informers actually inform us that actually, that 30 percent was just the start, we gather the information that before the end of this month, the price of fuel is bound to increase yet again. Over the last one week, there are some issues that have emerged, one concerns Indeni, Zesco, KCM and Mopani. I would like to call upon the UPND government to come clear on what their intentions are concerning Indeni, Zesco, KCM and Mopani. Because of these conflicting statements, our unfortunate suspicion is that their intention is to sell off these important facilities.”