 Zambians are being taken for a right and we need to bring a stop to this kind of behavior. And it appears that Zambians are now used to being treated to rhetoric. It appears we Zambians have accepted and we are used to being treated to rhetoric and lies. You cannot have the first citizen of this country always channeling out lies to the people of Zambia and you take it that this is normal. My dear brother president Haga indi ichigen you can do better. Look my brother lies have got very short legs. And the Bible says we shall know the truth and only the truth will set us free. It is not right that every time we address the people of Zambia we are feeding them with lies. I don't want to describe use Bemba descriptions of a person who tells lies because here we are dealing with a Republican president who deserve to be respected. If it was an opposition leader I could have used the appropriate Bemba description of a person who tells lies. But because I don't want to sound disrespected to the president I just want to offer him advice and say that this idea of telling lies with your straight face must come to an end. And I don't think Zambians deserve rhetoric. Zambians deserve better. You see our expressions when we are in the opposition should not be the expressions when you are in government particularly when you are the head of state. Particularly when you are the head of state you must provide leadership and quality leadership. And everything that you say must be nothing but the truth. Because when citizens start challenging the president with facts I mean would be accused of denting the image of one country. But I think when things have gone out of hand with so many lies so many deceits it is only reasonable that we talk about them so that we bring an end to this kind of behavior. Yesterday Zambians were treated to nothing but rhetoric and a cluster of lies which I am going to to challenge in my discourse. The president yesterday was expected to give us a way forward on now we are going to end the high cost of living. The high cost of fuel. High cost of electricity. Etc. But what did our president do? Our president merely grossed over these issues by giving us a cluster of lies. For instance the president said that the high cost of living is as a result of the economic GDP growth being in the negative. He also said that the inflation was too high and that was poor leadership and poor management of our resources. This is not true. It is not true in that look today the president himself said that the country is recording a GDP growth of about 2%. And that inflation is now about single digit from 24 24 to about 7, 8% Now, if the GDP the GDP growth has picked up the inflation has dropped from 24% to about 7, 8% Why is it that the cost of living today is much more higher than it was under PF? Why is it that the cost of living today the cost of fuel today the cost of electricity today is much, much higher than it was only 12 of August 2021 because everybody knows that the cost of living has actually gone up in the last one year more than it was under PF So if it is true that the cost of living is as a result of the economy being in the negative or in recess and that it's because of inflation and poor management Why is it that now we have good management a good president excellent one as he puts it himself and that we have recorded growth of 2% as opposed to the negative of we were about negative 2.5% but the price of commodities have gone up much higher than they were under PF who had recorded the negative GDP growth and whose inflation was 24% So you can see that this is nothing that lies Prior to the elections I didn't indicate to the nation what was causing high price of commodities and presidents Haga hindi ichile mawa in opposition says no it was just poor management and that when he forms government and he becomes president he was going to reduce the cost of living and about 3-4 things he pointed out that was going to reduce he said he was going to reduce the cost of millimi to about 50 kwacha between 5 kg bag of millimi he also said that he was going to reduce fatalizer from 600 kwacha that was the common market price of about 600-700 kwacha pay bag to about 250 kwacha pay bag today the price of millimi is about 180 kwacha between 5 kg bag today the price of fatalizer is over 1000 kwacha common market price and for fisi it has moved from 1000 kwacha pay the 50 kg bag to 1400 and in some instances 1200 so you can see that our president was not telling the truth and above not telling the truth he went on to he failed to give us policy direction of how he was going to reduce the cost of living because if indeed the cost of living was high because of microeconomical indicators like negative 2.5% growth agenus is positive 2% growth inflation adds 7% agenus pay off 24% then the price of commodities could have come down under his leadership but because this is not the cause of why prices of commodity the president was telling lies and unfortunately I have to be brunt brunt about it that the president was actually not telling the truth let's come to Lord Shedding the president was telling us that there is no Lord Shedding even asking people in the audience is there anybody who has been Lord Shedding and you went on to say there is nobody who has been Lord Shedding since the announcement of Lord Shedding Mr. President if your people are not telling you the truth they will make you in a very bad name among the Zambians here in Wanshaway I am I have been Lord Shedding twice I have been Lord Shedding twice and I know a lot of people and areas in Lusaka Kopa Bel Ndola Kirtwe who have been Lord Shedding I was in Kasama recently and there was Lord Shedding in Kasama so where are you getting this you know these facts or where are you getting your brief things that there is no Lord Shedding in this country my dear colleagues who are handling the president can we learn to tell the truth look when you are telling lies you are actually telling the people who are experiencing it today when you traverse Zambia people are complaining now they are saying does the president live in Zambia or not is the president on top of things or not if he can tell us that there is no Lord Shedding this issue of Lord Shedding my dear brother president have I in the HLMA I advised but I think it seems that this government is arrogant the minister indicated that we are not going to terminate contracts of those we are exporting electricity to and this was reaffirmed by the president yesterday that we cannot terminate contracts abramkli because we are going to work on increasing power generation capacity and if we cancel the contracts then it would mean that when we have excess will have nowhere to export what a way of thinking Mr. President you are a smart person but I think on this one however president no let's be serious how can you continue giving electricity to other countries when your own small scale entrepreneurs are suffering six hours of Lord Shedding how can you continue exporting because you are looking in the future that should you have excess electricity you will not have anybody to buy that electricity because of cancelling current contracts when you have the problem on your hands in your own country but president you can do better and my advice to you can you enforce the force maja I have said in the force maja is simply a provision in a contract that if you are supplying something to somebody let's take for instance electricity and I know I have seen the Zesko export contracts there is a provision in the force maja and PFDs enforce the force maja when we are terrible Lord Shedding it simply means that when you are faced with an act of God and foreseen circumstances and you are not able to meet your contractual obligations you can enforce this provision now Mr. President if you can make your own small scale entrepreneurs barbershop owners saloon owners those welders in Kalingalinga you are promoting the manufacturing of desks in the country and you have given yourself a target that by end 2023 the desks must be in the schools now if those people who are fabricating the desks don't have electricity how are they going to be productive then you say no we cannot cancel export contracts because in future when you have access will not have a way to sell it to a president please give us a break is this what Zangans voted you for to prioritize business than prioritize social aspect of our economy and I've even said look don't run this country on purely business principles because governance is not a total business it's a business to some extent but the major component of governance is to provide enabling environment for your citizens to have a comfortable life for your citizen to have businesses that will thrive now sure if you prioritize selling electricity to foreigners because you don't want to lose those customers but you would rather your own people suffer income by shutting down their barbershop for six hours shutting down their fabrication workshops for six hours even to some extent industries keep people away if a manufacturing industry would go without six hours of electricity obvious on that particular day they will tell the people to stay away from work productivity is reducing so to come and give us rhetoric that we have to keep our customers in case in future we have no no no no so the president told us lies that there was no Lord Shedding when there is Lord Shedding let's