DEMOCRATIC Party president Harry Kalaba has called on government to reintroduce subsidies in order to help cushion the cost of living.

In an interview, Friday, Kalaba said government should also review the scrapping of the mineral royalty tax.

“First of all, government should review the scrapping of the mineral royalty tax. They need to review it so that those monies can help in cushioning the economy now, which is in dire straits. They were saying they will reduce fuel by K1, they increase [by] K2. Government should subsidize everywhere, citizens are stressed. That is what all governments do, that is what the government in China is doing concerning its citizens’ food. That is what the government in France is doing, even governments in America are doing that. Where your citizens are stressed, the government needs to come in and cushion the impact. Our government can’t stand alone, they keep on increasing, why are they increasing like this?” he asked.

Kalaba said the UPND government was still learning how to govern the country.

“We are in trouble, it seems to me and it seems to us in our party that the leadership of President Hichilema was more prepared to petition the election outcome than to govern. They were more ready to petition than to govern, clearly, you can see there is no plan. Yesterday they had the youth Indaba, we are yet to see the outcome of that Indaba. We want to see the outcome and which youths are those, because we should have known who is being drawn from various interest groups. You know when you are doing things for political expediency, you always miss the point. So you can’t blame the President, because he was never in government, he is just learning how the government is operating. This is for the first time President Hakainde Hichilema is understanding how Cabinet looks like and how Cabinet Meetings are conducted. So he is learning everything. So it is all confusion,” said Kalaba.