By SIMON MUNTEMBA
THE shifting of responsibilities from the central Government to constituencies is a trap to make MPs scapegoats to justify President Hakainde Hichilema’s imminent failures in the next Presidential elections, Munir Zulu has charged.
Mr Zulu who is Lumezi Independent Member of Parliament (MP) said the UPND unveiled 2022 budget had false figures. In an ambitious 2022 national budget, Minister of Finance Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane announced unprecedented constituency development fund (CDF) increment from K1.6 million to K25.7 million per constituency.
Dr Musokotwane explained that certain tasks that were previously under the central Government would now be undertaken by the local authorities working through CDF. However, Mr Zulu said the shifting of responsibilities from the central Government to constituencies was aimed at framing MPs so that when President Hichilema failed to deliver, he would blame them.
He said it was imminent that the UPND Government would fail because it had underfunded the ministry. “A perfect scapegoat to justify his imminent failures in the next election. What is K25 million to a vast Constituency which requires roads , schools and clinics to be built as well as to serve educational and many other needs? It is all flawed,” Mr Zulu said.
He said the local people in the constituencies had no capacity to implement big Government projects. Meanwhile, President Hichilema said his administration was already working on modalities that would ensure effective implementation of the 2022 national budget with strict monitoring mechanisms. Mr Hichilema said monitoring and control measures would ensure that the public resources were spent for the intended purposes thereby avoiding any financial pilferage in the public sector.
The head of State said this at Kenneth Kaunda international airport before leaving for the United Kingdom to attend the cop26 world leaders’ summit in Glasgow, Scotland at the invitation of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
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