PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema has likened Zambia to a bleeding patient, saying every paramedic knows that in order to help the patient recover, one must first stop the bleeding.

But PF deputy national chairperson Davies Chama says it is unfortunate that President Hichilema has resorted to giving excuse after excuse for failing to the manage the country.

In a Facebook post, Saturday night, President Hichilema said his government was always honest about the scale of challenges it had inherited.

“We were honest in opposition about our vision for the future, and we are honest in government about the scale of the challenges we have inherited. Those who want to divide our country will pretend that a decade of mismanagement can be solved in one year. Every paramedic knows that you have to stop the bleeding before you can help the patient recover. The economy we inherited is that patient. But it will recover and Zambia will be better. Join us on Friday as we address Parliament to share what has been achieved in the two months of our first budget, and where we need to go from here,” stated President Hichilema.

But in an interview, Sunday, PF deputy national chairperson Davies Chama said it was unfortunate that President Hichilema has resorted to giving excuses.

“He will be full of excuses, you remember when he was campaigning, he was saying that he is coming to fix. He did not tell you that he is coming to fix a patient. Which patient? A patient who is on a dying bed? Is that what he promised the Zambian people that he is coming to heal a patient? He has now become a physician, he has now become a doctor from a politician, a President. It’s just excuses, pure excuses. You can trust them, you trust them at your own peril,” he said.

“These are not politicians that can be trusted and when they were promising people that they had solutions to the issues confronting the country, so they didn’t even know the extent of what they wanted to fix because they had no idea whatsoever. It’s very unfortunate. In this country, every politician, every one who comes into the government, says we want to come and fix it. When MMD came, they said no, they inherited a bankrupt economy and wanted to fix it. From time immemorial we have been fixing, fixing and fixing. It’s very very sad because that’s not how to run a country full of excuses. We must come up with a marshal plan, they should have a marshal plan to make sure that we continue to develop.”

He wondered whether youths would have to wait for the bleeding to stop for them to be employed.

“So those youths who were promised employment will need to wait until this patient stops bleeding? Whether this patient will be bleeding for the next 10 years, there will be no employment for the youths? Next time, they will tell you the wound is so big. You see, he said he inherited an empty treasury but the man is traveling all over the country, all over the world. So the bleeding continues because these are unnecessary expenditures that are incurring. What an empty excuse,” he said.

Chama said UPND did not know what it was getting itself into, hence the party’s uncoordinated approach to governance.

“He thought it was like running a farm or running a company. Running a country is not easy. So he has just found out that it is not as simple as he thought it would be and that’s why he is full of excuses. I don’t know for how long that patient will continue bleeding. So he will finish his five term and he will be full of excuses. This is UPND for you and for those who trusted them it’s unfortunate that they were duped. People were just cheated and believed their lies and now they got into the government using lies and so now lies are catching up with them,” he said.

“They didn’t even understand what they were getting into, they didn’t even understand what governance is all about. That’s why you hear this one says this the Vice President says this. It’s very uncoordinated, whatever they are saying is very, very uncoordinated but when we criticise and we make observations, what you see is insults and for us, we don’t even worry about their insults. They can insult and say no you were in government what and what. For us, we knew what we were doing and we would have taken this country to another level I can assure you because we knew.”

He said Zambia needed proper leadership and not a bunch of deceivers.

“We didn’t get into the government with excuses that ‘no, we had a patient’, Zambia was a patient and we wanted to heal the bleeding. We went on developing, to build infrastructure to make sure they lay the necessary foundation on which to build the nation. Not full of excuses that Zambia is a patient, eh eh, we will need to stop the bleeding. What bleeding? This country is full of natural resources but it needs a leadership that will turn around what we have. It has human capital but needs proper leadership in place to make sure that we turn our fortune. But we have a bunch of liars and a bunch of people who can deceive you. Now they are not even telling you for how long this patient will be on the surgical bed,” said Chama.