AG’s arrogance choking Zambians – Mwanza
By Mast Reporter
ATTORNEY General Mulilo Kabesha’s arrogance is choking the people of Zambia, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president Antonio Mwanza has said.
Mwanza described Kabesha as a careless man for branding Zambians lazy people, forgetting that he was a beneficiary of taxes paid by the people he was calling names.
“… he insults the very citizens whose sweat sustains the privileges he enjoys. Every day, long before dawn, ordinary Zambians rise farmers in the fields at 04:00, marketeers braving the dust and sun to sell a tomato, bus drivers and conductors fighting through traffic, students burning the midnight candle for exams, and workers scraping a living in offices, factories, and on the streets,” he said.
Mwanza said Zambians were a hardworking people who, despite facing the most difficult economic environment, were able to survive.
“These are not the marks of a lazy people; they are the marks of a resilient nation surviving against all odds. What Mr Kabesha calls “laziness” is, in truth, a struggle against an unfair system where those in government corridors live off free taxpayers’ money while the majority fight tooth and nail to feed their families. It is the height of arrogance and insensitivity for a man paid by the very people he mocks to demean their sacrifice,” he said.
He said Zambians deserved a leadership that recognised hard work, not opportunists who mock their suffering from positions of privilege.
And New Heritage Party president Chishala Kateka has demanded an apology from Kabesha.
Kateka said Kabesha was not only insensitive but arrogant toward a struggling citizenry.
“…it is also an affront to us Zambians that do not have the job that he has and have to make out an existence in this economy that this UPND government has woefully failed to create job and business opportunities for the majority of Zambians,” she said.
She urged Kabesha to go around the country to see how Zambians were struggling simply to put food on their table. “Does Kabesha know why youths go en masse to risk their lives to mine gold and copper in an unsafe environment, from the police as well as the mining environment itself? Is that laziness, or it is desperation to survive due to your government’s failure to provide safe jobs?”
She said the UPND government had been insensitive to the people of Zambia in various spheres of society.
Kateka urged the government and UPND officials to be sensitive to the struggles the people of Zambia were going through.
She said shocking, insensitive statements were made by senior government officials.
“President Hichilema has always told Zambians to go into cattle ranching when most Zambians cannot even afford a chicken or a goat! Vice-President Mutale Nalumango mocked Zambians by telling them that if you cannot afford breakfast meal, eat roller meal. Please let us be sensitive to the plight of Zambians, particularly as you, the UPND, have spectacularly failed to meet our needs of lower cost of living, lower fuel, lower exchange rate, consistently available electricity, and many more challenges,” she said.
