By Thomas Ngala
VICE President Mutale Nalumango has encouraged women to get pregnant so that they can benefit from the relief cash government has introduced aimed at mitigating hunger.
Nalumango yesterday boasted that government had done “so much” to ensure citizens were alive amid the high cost of living.
She said Zambians were watching and had seen government’s efforts in mitigating the hunger situation through various interventions.
Nalumango made the remarks when responding to Bweengwa Member of Parliament Michelo Kasautu in Parliament during her question time.
Kasautu wanted to know the measures government was undertaking to address widespread hunger.
“Today, Zambians are alive. Difficulty? Yes, but we are alive because of the many interventions that have been put in place. The first one I think of in my mind, if we go to the past, is the fact that we have restructured. We are still restructuring. We had to restructure the debt. Somebody may underplay this, but it is very important to the Zambian people and to all of us,” Nalumango said.
“Under [Ministry of] Community Development, do you even know that we are looking after pregnant mothers? So, imita ufole, get pregnant and get a little [money],” Nalumango said.
While raising his question, Kasautu said it was an undeniable fact that the United Party for National Development (UPND) government had inherited a broken economy which had been compounded by the drought.
He said from the time the UPND government took over from the PF, the situation had become worse as Zambians had been struggling a lot.
“Because if we had not, the minister of Finance is here… I think it is important to know the size of your economy or just the budget itself. What would we be doing? The minister will bear with me that we would be spending the entire budget on two items. That is, the repayment of debt and only wages for the civil servants.”
She said she was aware that there was a lot of talk about the cost of living in the country.
Nalumango boasted of having kitchen economics she termed as “Nalumangonomics”, saying it was not possible in an economy to just say ‘reduce the cost of fuel’.
“Yes, we agree. But it is like this government is sleeping, doing nothing about the cost of living. This government has done so much to allow the Zambians to live. At least to survive, if not to live, because of the many interventions this government has put in place. Colleagues, when you talk about the cost of living, I think it is important, madam [Speaker] that we hear what they would have done because I think they would have gone into some books of things that don’t work,” she said.
“When you have a high cost of commodities, there are two things you can do. I didn’t go to the school of economics but I have kitchen table economics, Nalumangonocs… It’s either you reduce the cost, you say cut the price…Now, that is not possible in an economy to just ‘reduce the cost of fuel’. You just say that? You declare? You pronounce? How will you reduce the cost of fuel when it is not you who is manufacturing the fuel? So, it is not possible.”
She however said the government was addressing the matter by empowering people with the resources to buy commodities.
Nalumango cited the “over 80,000” jobs the government has created as part of the solution.
The UPND administration had created an environment where jobs were being created in many places.
