Vice President Mutale Nalumango has admitted failure by the UPND government over the continued escalating prices of mealie meal, stating that the leadership should have been proactive in dealing with mealie-meal prices because according to her, the problem has been historical and could have been avoided.
The Vice President has however promised that the UPND government has learnt its lessons and shall endeavor to perform better in the years coming.
And Vice-President Nalumango has said it is unlikely that the prices of mealie meal would ever be reduced to K50 as was promised by the UPND during its campaigns.
Meanwhile, Ms Nalumango has said the UPND did not care about being voted out or becoming the first governing party to serve for only one term for as long as the right policies meant to turn around the country’s economy were being implemented.
Ms. Nalumango said prices of mealie-meal have always gone up during the farming season and that had government been proactive, the leadership would have put in measures to avert mealie meal price increases.
“I personally take the blame for this (increase in the price of mealie meal). We should learn to be proactive because the issue of mealie-meal prices going up happens year in year out and we could do better,” Ms. Nalumango said.
She admitted that mealie meal prices were high against the expectations of the government and that the UPND government was working untiringly to bring the cost of living down.
Ms. Nalumango said this when she featured on a live radio programme on Phoenix FM dubbed Let the People talk.
And phoning in the program Shiwang’andu Member of Parliament Stephen Kampyongo told Ms Nalumango that the UPND should draw lessons from its monumental failures and stop trivializing national matters for political expediency.
Mr Kampyongo said the MPs started talking about the delivery and distribution of fertilizer as early as August last year but that the UPND government had refused to pay attention which had resulted into the chaotic distribution of farming inputs.
Meanwhile, Ms. Nalumango has said government was working to ensure that the process of fuel were mitigated and pleaded with Zambians to understand that the high fuel prices were not the cause of the UPND.
