UPND Alliance Chairperson Charles Milupi says some of the opposition members talking about infrastructure development should be in jail.

And Milupi says Brian Mundubile and Makebi Zulu have nothing to offer with regards to infrastructure.

During a recent rally, Mundubile promised better housing for teachers across the country.

Commenting on that in an interview, Milupi, who is former infrastructure minister, accused the PF of inflating the costs of infrastructure projects during their time in power.

He added that Mundubile, who was a minister in the PF, and others are still owed money because they left a huge debt in infrastructure.

“They left a huge debt, the infrastructure that they are talking about, K12 billion, they left it, these are facts. Some of them are owed money including Mundubile himself, that’s the situation that they left. But worse than that, even though they spent some money on projects, they did in a very expensive way, that’s why they keep telling you that 1KM of tarred road was $1.2 million, sometimes $1.4 billion, completely out of scale. That’s why the Lusaka-Ndola Road… they gave a contract on a loan that they were going to get, they gave it to China Jiangxi at a cost of $1,245,000,000 before interest, before they borrowed the money. If they had borrowed the money, it would have come to $1.8 billion, we came on and we said we will do it under PPP. But even then, we carefully worked out the cost, we agreed with the contractor, it has come to $649 million completely with interest,” he said.

“The breakdown includes interest, a third of what it would have cost those same chaps. And there are many other projects like that I can tell you, some of them, they paid… Someone would come up with advance payment certificate and they claim that they have done 60 per cent of the work. They would pay them for 60 per cent, when we go and check it’s only 30 per cent that has been done, roads were abandoned like the Mokambo, the pedicle road which is a vital link into Luapula, completely abandoned. So, this is where we are, then they had other infrastructure projects which costed a fortune, some of these people should be in prison instead of talking the way they are”.

He said if Mundubile was re-elected, the country would go back to poor quality and expensive projects.

“For example, the Lusaka International Airport, it cost $369 billion, just that new building, because we already had the runway. Similar airports, people who checked in Ghana for example, there was a similar airport costing $60 million, you compare that building with the Mulungushi International Conference Centre KK wing in terms of just the buildings, the building at the International Airport and this, I think more or less they are similar. This one because it was a gift from the Chinese government it cost $60 million, that one because it was Zambian money, it cost $369 million, just compare. If that thing was expensive, it should have been a maximum of $100 million, but it cost $369 million,” said Milupi.

“On infrastructure, Mundubile and Makebi Zulu and the whole of Tonse Alliance they have really nothing to offer, either what they have done or what they promise to do. In a highly unlikely event that they were to assume power, we would go back to the poor quality that they left, we would go back to very expensive projects or infrastructure. They would go back to giving themselves contracts, one of them was a minister and he ran a construction company, even as a minister, I’m not aware of someone in our government who is running a construction company, I’m certainly not running a construction company. But he was running a construction company, getting contracts from government, I don’t know whether he was declaring interest and so on, and he was doing a poor job, so they have absolutely nothing. The Zambians must avoid them so that we can avoid going back to the terrible situation they left on infrastructure”.