PF TO ENGAGE AFDB, EU 

By NATION REPORTER

THE Patriotic Front (PF) says it will engage the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) and the European Union (EU) to find out how the two multilateral institutions are bankrolling the UPND for the ruling party to comfortably look after its cadres. 

Brian Mundubile, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament says Zambians in general should now realise that they are not part of the UPND’s agenda as the ruling party is only concerned about the welfare of its members.

Mr Mundubile, a PF presidential candidate says it was shocking that Batuke Imenda, the secretary general of the UPND could publicly announce that President Hichilema’s meetings with the AfDB and the EU were meant to solicit funding exclusively for the activities of the ruling party.

He said the AfDB and the EU were multilateral institutions whose core business was to finance national developmental programmes member states and not to reduce themselves to funding individual political parties.

Mr Mundubile, the Mporokoso PF Member of Parliament said it was unfortunate that while Zambians were thinking President Hichilema was global-trotting with a begging bow, the head of State was instead looking for money for the UPND activities and not for programmes meant to improve the lives of citizens.

“We had raised concerns about President Hichilema’s expensive trips early in his presidency and he convinced Zambians that he was in fact travelling with a lean delegation. But what we discovered was that there was always a hoard of cadres in his advance party and they always resurfaced wherever the President was.”

“We thought that when President Hichilema was flying around using the country’s treasury, he was looking for resources for all Zambians. Little did we know that he was meeting with the AfDB and the EU to look for money for the UPND? Batuke Imenda has just revealed that the trips the President has been undertaking at great cost are only to benefit UPND members and not Zambians in general. No wonder we are not seeing any results. 

It is most unfortunate but as the PF, we shall be engaging the AfDB and the EU to find out how and why they are funding the UPND instead of national developmental programmes,” Mr Mundubile said.   

He said the President should be travelling the world at great cost to negotiate funding for the UPND instead of national programmes was unacceptable and that Zambians should seriously ask the ruling party if it had the national agenda.

Mr Mundubile said Mr Imenda had become the minister without portfolio in the UPND government who was performing the functions of the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development with the blessings of the head of State.

“Mr Imenda announced that the UPND government was increasing the Consituency Development Fund (CDF) to K57 million and we had the Minister of Local Government Gary Nkombo who came to Parliament and said it was not true. But Mr Imenda is still insisting that the CDF would be increased to K57 million.”

The UPND has realised that the much celebrated CDF is not working for their cadres who cannot form cooperatives and now they want President Hichilema to pay attention to UPND cadres instead of all citizens. We have been telling    the UPND that the cost of living is high and that their members were equally affected. Now they are trying to excite their members to celebrate their second years in government but are faced with a lot of resistance because they have not seen the benefits of supporting the UPND,” Mr Mundubile said. 

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