By GIDEON NYENDWA
IT is hypocritical for the UPND government to go silent on the retirement package for former President Edgar Lungu after all the pressure they piled on him to leave active politics or risk losing his benefits, National Democratic Congress secretar-general Charles Kabwita has said.
Mr Kabwita said Mr Lungu retired from active politics amid massive pressure from UPND were everyone in that party including nonentities were able to comment on his retirement package.
Mr Kabwita said it was unfortunate that after all the humiliation the former president went through at the hands of UPND to compel him to formally declare his retirement from active politics, Government has not announced whether his package was being worked on.
He said that when UPND formed government, every Jim and Jack were commenting on him losing his retirement package if he continued being in politics, something that he was not even doing.
Mr Kabwita said that the government should quickly start making arrangements for Mr Lungu’s retirement so that he could settle down peacefully.
He said that he was not on the side of the Patriotic Front, but he was not pleased with the way the former head of State was being treated by the new regime.
Mr Kabwita said that President Hakainde Hichilema should understand that at one point he was going to become a former president and he would not want to be treated the same way as he was treating his predecessor.
“What’s with the silence,” he said.
He said that UPND should leave a legacy of respecting former heads of state so that when NDC forms government in 2026 they should also respect him as former president. Mr Kabwita said that president Lungu recorded great success in the seven years that he led this nation especially in the infrastructure sector which ought to be acknowledged by the new regime.
