By NATION REPORTER
PARLIAMENT should start taking action against members who tell lies on the floor of the House for failure to discipline such erring MPs would render the House redundant, the Patriotic Front (PF) has said.
PF acting president Lubinda said when Zambians raised the issue of shortage of drugs through their Members of Parliament, the Minister of Health Sylvia Masebo lied on the floor of the House that the country had enough stocks of drugs when it was not true.
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He questioned the sanctity of Parliament as UPND ministers lie on the floor of parliament with impunity.
“Zambians must start demanding that those people who tell lies in parliament must be reprimanded, telling a deliberate lie in parliament is an offense,” Mr Lubinda said.
Mr Lubinda said if people were to go and check the hansard in Parliament the minister had been saying that there is no shortage of drugs but now they have turned around and accepted that indeed there is a shortage of drugs.
He said Zambians wanted to know what Parliament was doing about the ministers who had been lying in the House and told lies on the availability of medicines and issues that bordered between life and death.
Mr Lubinda said at the time the PF was saying the Ministry of Health should use the drugs that they left at the Zambia Medicines and Medical Supplies Agency (ZAMMSA), the UPND government dismissed a lot of public servants from the institution on account that the former ruling party had left a rotten system.
He said UPND was accusing the PF of having procured expired drugs but that the former ruling party had been vindicated as government had distributed the same drugs they called expired to the health facilities across the country.
Mr Lubinda also said Agriculture Minister Mtolo Phiri had lied on the floor of the House that Zambia had sufficient stocks of maize in the strategic reserves when the reserves had been depleted by government through exports of maize. He said the UPND government sold all the maize but Mr Mtolo claimed in Parliament that the country still had sufficient stocks in the strategic reserves not until the shortages of mealie-meal exposed them. He said Zambia could not continue being governed by people who thrived on lies.
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