FORMER Finance Minister Ng’andu Magande says he is not happy that opposition parties gathered to attack President Hakainde Hichilema instead of offering ideas to government.

Commenting on the seven opposition political parties which held a briefing to raise concern over what they termed as a breakdown in the rule of law, escalating cost of living and selective justice in the country, Magande said their job was not only to criticise government but to also help it move forward.

“I was not happy when I saw this group of presidents of parties at their age talking about personalities. Talking about individuals, where are all those ideas which they had and they exposed them during the presidential debates? Where did they put those ideas? They should have a meeting and pressurise the President to say ‘can you get us together to talk about what we do with these school children, what we do about this rain water’. That is what they should be talking about. They are all young people, they have ambitions of leading this country, let them not throw away leadership by talking about one person. Imagine all those people talking about one person,” Magande said.

“When you are not in government as a political party, your job is not just to criticise the government. It is also to help the government to move. How long are we going to be hearing ‘the President is now becoming this’ it is the government now. And by the way, some of them, I can assure you, their vice-presidents, their secretary generals are itching to go and help the government.”

He said there was need for government to organise meetings for members of their public to exchange ideas in order to rebuild the economy.

“The last 15 years I have not had the opportunity to go into government offices because everywhere I wanted to go, people did not want to talk to me, if they wanted to talk to me, they talked to me derogatory. Now when I go into these offices, I find some civil servants who are saying I think we need to rebuild our country. Let us start thinking of how we can rebuild our country. There is nobody else who can do these things when you have a situation where the whole nation wants change. That is how the voting was. So, when you have a whole group of people wanting to change, the leadership of that group must come up and organise meetings for the people to exchange ideas. So, the government must do that as part of their planning for the future,” he said.

Meanwhile, Magande said the government must think of changing the syllabus of school going children.

“Now that the young people have had the opportunity to get into school, the government must think of changing the syllabus to teach these children. If we are able to come up with a mindset changing subject, we should teach the right subject. Over one million children are in school now,” said Magande.