 Wspunzini, wwe nga ho remaina na uzaambiena. Wwe wwe nga oreatya pusua kutu kuitia. We kontrast. Na kwaana dieselina 2 ga mba 2018. Upsa bwia tohoшая pouzunia na na 20a na 2 ga mba 2018. Kwaana kwaana? Atebashyaasunia hluchaka. Emeritasukoo. Nga rye wa kwaana uja. I don't think you heard this man as secretary general of the PF then standing up and calling Archbishop Pumbundu a son of Lucifer. No, he did not. Archbishop Pumbundu was invited as guest of honor at the UPND gathering and he went there and spoke. Archbishop Pumbundu was one of those who formed the CEDA and as all of you know a CEDA was raising criticism against the patriotic front. We never called him names. There was a bishop a few weeks before elections in 2021, he was preaching in his church and he was saying time for change has come. Change, remove these people. Our secretary general then did not insult them. How many priests used the pulpit to criticize the patriotic front? We never castigated them. The reason we never did that is because we in the patriotic front have held the position that governance is for the people and the people have the right to comment, the people have the right to criticize. And I'm giving you this example so that you, my fellow countrymen and women can use this opportunity to compare and contrast so that even the old adage better the devil you know than the angel you don't. I'm sure that there are many zambians who are now reckoning with the fact that better the devil in the patriotic front than the angel in the UPND. My fellow countrymen and women, the only scene the church has committed is to remind President Hijirema of his misru, his abuse of power, corruption, intolerance and failure to agently attend to the suffering of the people. The workers, the women, the youths and the unemployed. Indeed, what offence did parish priests father Anthony Salangeta commit when he said the people in Misesi compound do not understand graphs. What offence is meant by that? What offence is meant by saying the people who are poor, the language they understand is wali. Should that lead him to be declared the son of the devil? We in the patriotic front across the country call upon war-meaning zambians to rise. Rise, defend and protect the church. Rise, defend and protect the leadership of the church. The church is merely playing both its prophetic role and its duty to fight for social justice. We should also remind President Hagainde that the office that he occupies is the people's office. It is the highest office of the land. It is like a candle or a light that is put at the zenith of a hill, of a mountain. Everybody sees it. Because of that, it is the most vulnerable to public scrutiny and criticism. To govern people, to govern people. Not only Africans, people generally, not only Africans is very difficult. I heard him saying in one voice note, to govern Africans is very difficult. No, it's not only Africans is to govern people which is difficult. It requires resilience and the ability to take criticism and sometimes even ridicule. That's what governance is all about. That's what leadership is about. Expressing anger and frustration against individual citizens in public by head of state is far from the expected behavior of a president. Far, the president should not give himself the liberty to behave in the manner in which he was behaving when he was opposition president. He is now vested with the constitutional authority to govern over the people of Zambia's lives. Like I said, King Henry's statement led to the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury. And King Henry did not even intend that the Archbishop must be killed. And now, because of the reaction of President Hadayinde to Father Anthony Solangeta, what have we heard? The spirit of the leadership of the church must be demeaned by people who some of them know little about church leadership. We in the leadership of the patriotic front are going to stand and defend the clergy. We shall stand and defend the church. After all, the church is the soul of the world. And also I'd like to remind all politicians and especially those who think that because they were elected in 2021 with one million votes, therefore, they are there to stay. Learn from us, we were there so we know political power is temporary. But those who are called by God to lead his church have a lifelong calling. No matter what you do, I'll just remind you of the story of Saint Paul. After persecuting the church, after persecuting the disciples of Christ, a day of reckoning came, he didn't have to die. He was still alive when Jesus told him, why are you persecuting me? So my dear friends in the UPND, those positions you hold, you hold for and on behalf of the Zambian people and the voice of the people is the voice of God. I am not worthy to advise members of the clergy. I'm not worthy whatsoever. I know that the clergy can speak for themselves. But the only thing I can do on behalf of my colleagues in the patriotic front is to pray to God that you dismiss with contempt all these injurious words that are being said against you and do what God sent you to do. Pray for them, for they do not know what they are doing. Pray for them. Like I said, all of us in the patriotic front, all of us citizens, let us not allow that politics, hate, anger must now visit our churches. We don't want our people to be divided when they go to church. No, people of different political affiliations go to church to worship their God. Don't tempt people on matters of religion, on matters of Christianity. Let the body of Christ continue to grow in Zambia. What the clergy are talking about are things that people are feeling. And I want to address some of these issues. Lack of medicine, medical supplies and laboratory reagents. Most of you countrymen and women will recall that the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Commit Development and Social Services recently established that stockouts of medicines, medical supplies and laboratory reagents in public health facilities were frequent thereby endangering numerous lives of patients, especially children. Zambia is however currently sitting at only 42% availability of medicines and medical supplies contrary to the World Health Organization recommended guidelines of between 70 and 80%. Furthermore, most hospital equipment such as diagnosis machines are down. You go to the hospital, the diagnostic machines are not working. How does the doctor prescribe medicine? How? If the doctor cannot first of all establish what your ailment is, how do they prescribe medicine even for you to go and find it in the pharmacy, private pharmacy? How this grave situation has gone on for almost two years without being resolved? And our question is, how many more Zambian lives shall we continue to lose before action is taken beyond simple official rhetoric? ¿Ku kulaanda? ¿Ku kubumba? ¿Gunina? ¿Kwa amba ola riyonse? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Verega mudala verega. Eh? Kuide kwa amba ola riyonse? Musu angano riyonse? Eh? Uwa uwenbirati riyeng embi mudalaga. Uwa muka embi rengo embiwek. You know I have said this before. Kwa jim gemole menaji voodu Please use the drugs that we have at Zamsa. What did they do? They fired a lot of people at Zamsa saying they were all corrupt. Changed things at Zamsa because they wanted to make them better because the system left was corrupt. They said we had imported expired drugs. What has happened? Time came and vindicated us. The same drugs they were saying were expired were used. I heard President Againde saying, I also want to repeat, I want to repeat, I want to say something simple. Even have the audacity to have ministers to go and lie in parliament. If you have no respect for parliament, then why you going to have respect for? I'm hoping that you Zambians will join us in demanding that parliament must take action against those people who lie to parliament. Because if you don't, then that institution of parliament will become useless. If anyone can go to parliament and just tell Pushimi and they go away with it, then that institution will become redundant. And we Zambians must not allow for institutions of governance to become redundant. So let's demand that those who tell lies in parliament must be reprimanded. The priests, the clergy are raising these issues. They have raised the issue of drugs, but also they have raised the issue which is current, which is a very tropical matter. The matter of the food reserve agency, maize purchases, soya beans purchases. As you are aware, the FRA was instructed by government to announce recently that it will buy 500,000 metric tons of maize at a price of 280 kwacha per 50 kg bag. And when they announced that somebody was saying, we want to give money to the farmers as though they are doing farmers a favor. I am a farmer too. And many of my colleagues are farmers. Some grow maize, others rare animals, others grow soya. Others grow trees. We are farmers of different kinds. And we wish to inform the state, the country categorically that this price of 280 kwacha per 50 kg bag is far too low. Here me correctly. Is far too low compared to the cost of production which escalated from 2021 as a result of the poor management of the economy and the agriculture sector by the UPND regime. Is far too low. I told you, I myself am a maize farmer and you can come to my farm and see the maize. So I know what I'm talking about. During the 2022-2023 agricultural season, a hectare of maize costed no less than 14,000 kwacha. One hectare of maize costed no less than 14,000 kwacha. 8,000 kwacha for fertilizer, 8 bags. 890 to 1,000 kwacha for seed for a hectare. 1,000 kwacha for pesticides. And as you all know in Zambia these days because of any program you have to have herbicides and you have to have pesticides. The cost of plowing alone for a hectare is no less than 2,000 kwacha. What about the cost of harvesting? The bags that were going to bag our maize do not come free. We have to pay for them. The shelling is also a cost and you heard what they have been saying that on average in Zambia, one hectare produces 1.7 metric tons. Now, if you divide 14,000 kwacha by 1.7 metric tons, the price or the cost of a bag of minimu this year is no less than 422 kwacha. So if you think that you are fooling us farmers by paying 280, you are paying us a cost recovery. You are actually not. There is totally nothing for the farmer to celebrate over the low price of 280 kwacha. Nothing. Every farmer is going to subsidize conception by 144 kwacha per bag. Why is that? Recklessness. I heard we are being asked to give us alternative policies. We give you these alternative policies you do not listen. We advise in 2021-2022 that please do not interfere with the marketing systems that we put in place for agricultural commodities for fertilizer. What did you do? Three times you cancelled tenders. So when you are going to buy your panic buying and you are paying a price of $1,065 per metric ton of fertilizer. This is what escalated the cost of fertilizer in the country. Second, you delayed in the supply of fertilizer to the farmers. Had you provided the fertilizer in good time, maybe the farmers would have produced 2,000 tons per hectare instead of 1.7 tons per hectare. They should produce 2 tons per hectare. When we talked about experience, the 1 million Zambians did not listen. I am sure that now they are experiencing also that to listen is a virtue. Countrymen and women. Now that the UPND government has put us in this quagmire of giving farmers a low price of $280 and yet transforming that into a higher millimil price it is to the government, the UPND government to demonstrate to all of us Zambians how it will regulate the anticipated high price of millimil. We wish to advise Zambians in all honesty to prepare themselves for more difficult times ahead. Due to the increase in the cost of production of maize, all food prices are bound to skyrocket. So, chickens, fish, pork, beef, cereals, milk, everything. Zambians, brace yourselves for harder times to come. On our part we shall continue to advise and we shall continue to criticize for the sake of making sure that the people who are governing us can do things better to ameliorate the suffering of these Zambians as though the maize saga is not enough we would like to state that the action not to purchase soha beans must be revoked as soon as possible because failure to do so is going to relegate our farmers to huge losses. When the price of maize now has been pegged at 280 as the price at which FRA will buy, I can assure you that millers will go and pay a little bit higher. Now if you say that FRA is not going to buy soha beans what will that mean? The poor farmer, especially the small scale farmers, the ones that deserve to be protected by the state will remain extremely vulnerable because nobody want to pay a good price. The FRA act is very clear that besides buying strategic reserve they are also meant to stabilize the price not only the price for the consumers but also the price for the farmer that is their role and this is the reason why in the PF we designated 8 crops to be strategic crops and one of them is soha all the gains that were made by the PF in the oil industry will be lost remember countrymen and women before the PF government the bulk of our cooking oil was imported the bulk of it was imported when the PF government we decided to support the growing of oil crops soha, sanfa, kotun and we also encouraged processors to expand their processing capacity that's how come you saw Mount Meru putting up a processing plant for oil they went into outgrow skins with farmers because they knew that the government was supporting the farmers now all those gains are at a risk of collapsing however, we remind Mr. Hagainde that some farmers were actually encouraged to grow soha beans away from maize when he himself posted on his Facebook page on July 24, 2022 the statement which said and I quote let me drink some water so that I quote properly Mr. Hagainde Hijirema on his Facebook page his personal Facebook page on 24 July 2022 July 2022 zambians have become accustomed to the fact that what the president announces is policy not maniengwe they have known this because they have had six presidents who when they say something it happens they did not know that it is maniengweku state house no so they believed what president Hagainde Hijirema said that they are the market for soha beans in the people's republic of China the largest importer of soha beans globally they therefore relied on his assurance and went ahead and invested their hard-earned money and effort in the production of soha beans not buying their crop will be what betrayal to the farmer by the president the number one citizen who is of zambians has betrayed the farmers no please Hagainde Mugesu ejijashupamudala buy the soha beans from the farmers you assured them please buy their soha beans tuagomba buy their soha beans if there is anything I would like to defend you on is that you do not be called a betrayer of the farmer please that is a very bad tag to have naugomba mudala don't allow anyone to give you that tag don't buy the soha beans from the farmers you promised them it is there, it is on record, it is there we as a government the patrotifron government encouraged the farming of soha beans to grow the nascent manufacturing industry and feed stock or stock feed and we succeeded we are proud now that the amount of cooking oil that is imported in Zambia is very minimal and it is only oil that cannot be produced in Zambia when you see foreign oil on the Zambian market it is oil from palm oil and actually even now in Impeka they are still processing palm oil olive oil that is the one that we import but now with this move next year farmers will not produce soha and if they don't produce soha what will happen to the oil market industry jobs I feel extremely saddened that all these investments that were encouraged by the PF government in the oil sector are under threat because of the poor management of the agriculture sector by UPND again I want to remind us that what the priests are talking about are matters that affect citizens the next one that affects citizens is the judiciary the judiciary is a sacred institution and a genuine sanctuary for citizens seeking justice and protection to the rule of law as seen recently a key pillar to the independence integrity, impartiality and broader sanctity of the judiciary namely the security of tenure is being violated the security of tenure of judges is being violated whereas in the past there existed a rigorous and thorough mechanism to discipline and remove judges we have seen that now a judge can be removed by a mere complaint to the judicial complaints commission and these recommendations to the president that's it, finish they are gone so far we have seen the removal of judges without much ado this has introduced fear as is to be expected in the rank and file of judges and will therefore compromise the integrity impartiality and broader sanctity of the judiciary we have seen the creation of purpose-built courts to deal with certain criminal matters sorry in a politically fixed time and period contrary to the provisions of the law countrymen and women in a democracy the judiciary is an institution which is key to upholding the principles of justice the rule of law and is the guardian of the constitution sadly this duty because of this development stands compromised I will leave that aside and move to a sector that is talked about very very often especially when president Againde chooses to speak to you citizens the economy yes indeed we have seen the graphs and yes we shall apply to go to primary school to learn more about these graphs we will however can the most learned scholars and the most intelligent and knowledgeable economists also explain to us the meaning of the graph released by the Bank of Zambia recently which shows the mining tax payments made through the Bank of Zambia during the period 2021 to 2023 I have a copy of it with me I wonder whether Mr. Mwanza will be able to make copies for all of you this is a chart that was produced by the Bank of Zambia and this graph shows the following payments received by Bank of Zambia as mineral royalty tax and non mineral royalty tax in million US dollars year by quarter by quarter from 2021 to 2023 in quarter one of 2021 we collected 224 million dollars in quarter two 403 million dollars quarter three 480 million dollars quarter four of 2021 after PF was kicked out of government we collected 342 dollars quarter one of 2022 the figure increased to 422 million dollars quarter two of 2022 494 million dollars and now trouble starts quarter three of 2022 we collected less than what we collected in quarter two of 2021 we collected 290 million dollars quarter four of 2022 we collected again less than what we collected in quarter four of 2021 in quarter four of 2021 we collected 342 million dollars 2021 2022 185 half half in quarter one of 2023 this quarter that we have just ended we collected the least ever since 2021 we collected 187 million dollars year on year basis in 2021 we collected 1,405 million dollars 2022 1,391 from 1,450 in just one year it went down to 1,391 now I already gave you an example quarter one of 2023 187 million dollars compare that with quarter one of 2022 187 million is only 44% of what we collected in quarter one of 2022 when the policies of the PF are still taking effect and if you compare to quarter one of 2021 again it is less this chart illustrates the fact that much as the UPND are clamoring for debt relief from outside the country on the other hand giving out the much needed tax revenues to their foreign investor friends we were collecting for Zambia for them what have they done given tax breaks to miners who are the investors in mines foreigners they are friends I can assure you that had the PF continued in government we could have ensured that these taxes are used to redeem our debt burden we could have used the same tax to redeem our tax burden so we are not borrowing without knowing where to get the money from we are borrowing knowing that we can increase the tax on the mining and we can demonstrate from this graph that we end 1,450,000 in 2021 in 2022 because of tax breaks only 1,300,000 this year we even be worse the approach by president in the Higirema to provide solutions to the economic malaise has been to rely on the IMF bailout and foreign direct investment obviously this approach has failed as the IMF bailout is not forthcoming as the IMF facilitated creditors committee has not made headway with China which is co-chair of the committee now despite undertaking over 35 international trips in less than 2 years most of them being totally unnecessary totally unnecessary just for window shopping and showing off Mr Higirema has failed to find time to travel to China to engage in bilateral talks to help resolve this standoff my dear countrymen and women we are paying for trips more than 35 trips in less than 2 years and indeed like somebody said your good deeds speak for themselves if you are good you are good you don't have to go out saying I'm good if you are your maps people follow your music you fill up the stadium because you are your maps you don't have to go out and say I'm good too you don't have to go out saying you don't have to go out saying me I'm a very hard worker your hard work is seen by how many granaries you filled up with maize noted you won't say that you don't remember you don't remember you don't remember you don't remember you don't remember you don't remember you don't remember you don't remember had these trips been meaningful zambians would have seen their impact but because they are not impactful that's the reason why we are being treated to being lectured all the time I went to America to go and get investors in electricity I know let us see the investor coming you even boast about pledges there are so many pledges so much let those pledges be translated into reality my dear citizens we in the patriotic front would like to urge all of us zambians to prepare ourselves for higher fuel prices higher prices of essential goods especially food and a very volatile foreign exchange market which are all already compounding on the vexing problems of poverty vexing problems of disease and rampant unemployment and these things to be happening under the watch of people who only a few years ago told us that once you vote them in power every zambian shall have three square meals a day people who told us who told you zambians that the patriotic front on the 15 kwacha price of fuel midwomen was feeding three kwacha for us to suffer to this extent under the watch of a president who pointed up to the skies vote me at 12 hours mule kutika vote me at 12 hours 14 hours the kwacha will appreciate to 10 kwacha to the dollar for all this suffering to be happening under the watch of people who made these promises is extremely unacceptable I would like to end by saying indeed president Agaende you are right numbers don't lie no numbers never lie but the truth of the matter is that numbers are used to lie numbers can be used to lie 15 kwacha 3 kwacha 12 o'clock 10 kwacha 15 kwacha 15 kwacha 15 kwacha 15 kwacha 12 o'clock numbers can be used to lie thank you very much