MAMBO BLASTS MINISTERS

… HH means well but those surrounding him are too much into lip service but when we call them for dialogue, they think we are after their jobs, says Bishop John Mambo

By Lumbiwe Mwanza

MINISTERS and everyone sounding President Hakainde Hichilema should stop paying lip service and begin to show commitment in improving the welfare of citizens by ensuring an open door policy, says Chikondi Foundation President John Mambo.

Speaking with The Scoop, Bishop Mambo expressed disappointment that most ministers under the UPND government are failing to embrace the stakeholders for dialogue as most of them do not even want to pick calls.

He said the provision of checks and balances by the stakeholders should be embraced with the view to attain national development. He wondered why some ministers had all of a sudden become so inaccessible that they did not only fail to pick calls, but were also not available when stakeholders presented themselves to try and find solutions to challenges facing the country.

He said it was the wish of stakeholders such as Non- Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the church to work together in finding common ground on what needed to be done to address challenges facing the country for the sake of the ordinary Zambian but that most minister in the current Government had shut their doors to engagement.

He said President Hichilema meant well for the country and that this was the reason he had employed an open door policy and was available for dialogue but that his troops were letting him down as they were not available, a development he said was painting the UPND Government in bad light.

“President Hichilema cannot deliver development alone. Those surrounding him should not pay lip service because citizens have high expectations. A lot of interventions such as the Constituency Development Funds (CDF) have been implemented but we cannot have a situation where the Government officials and ministers in particular, don’t pick calls when we want to engage with them,” Bishop Mambo complained.

“When we call them, it is not like we want their jobs yet all we want is to dialogue on how best we can run this country by finding solutions to the existing economic problems. People are calling to say we have some solutions to help you but those who should be helped do not answer,” he added.

He said that the only way to unite the country and foster development based on collaboration and ensuring an open door policy adding that it was not right that despite the Head of State consistently calling for engagement with all stakeholders, his ministers were doing the opposite.

He acknowledged that CDF was a game changer as it has been implemented in all constituencies without discriminating against any area in the country, but that more needed to be done in terms of improving governance.

He said that President Hichilema meant well for Zambia but that politics should not be personalized to an extent where all checks and balances being offered were meant to praise those in the Government as that had the potential to de-campaign the ruling party.

 “Politics is not supposed to be personalized to an extent where from morning to evening it is all about HH. People are tired of that and that is de-campaigning the party. What is needed is real checks and balances that tells facts on the ground,” he said.