Friday, March 29, 2024

PF Government is planning to start GMOs imports-Nawakwi

Share

Edith Nawakwi
Edith Nawakwi

FDD president Edith Nawakwi has accused the PF Government of planing to start feeding Zambians Genetically Modified foods. In a statement released to the media, Ms Nawakwi said that the advertisement by Shoprite (Z) Limited to import GMOs must have the blessing of the Government as importation of GMOs is a government policy issue

Below is the full statement

The PF government is planning to start feeding Zambians on Genetically Modified foods through Shoprite (Z) limited. Shoprite has since advertised the importation of GMOs such as spices.

We are shocked that Government can be so uncaring to the extent of exposing its own people to GMOs whose side effects have not been quantified. The ugly memories of the Zambeef debacle are still green in our minds and it is agonizing to note that our government has decided to subject our people to potentially hazardous foodstuffs for the sake of lining their pockets with pieces of silver.

The issue of importing GMOs is a policy issue and it is clear that someone in Government, at the highest level is benefiting from this deal.

We challenge the Minister of Agriculture Hon Given Lubinda and his Defence counterpart, Edgar Chagwa Lungu to come out clean and prove to the nation that they are not part of this scheme to start feeding our people on GMOs.

It is completely unacceptable that the Minister of Defence Hon Chagwa Lungu and his Government have resorted to using Zambia as a platform for supplying the rest of Africa with potentially contaminated foods. Have they consulted our sister countries in the SADC region that they want to use our country as an unmanned gate to supplying our people in the region with GMOs whose implications are actually unknown?

This Judas Iscariot mentality from our colleagues in Government will lead them to the same fate Judas suffered. It seems that corruption in this country has moved from State House right to our graveyards. Aba abantu ba PF kuti bashitsha ne chalo umulandu wakutemwa impiya.

Issued by;

Edith Z Nawakwi,

FDD President.

31 COMMENTS

  1. Hoping it is the usual Nawakwi’s rhetoric, I equally condemn such a proposal in the strongest terms possible. That should be the last option for the govt to think about, circumstances notwithstanding. Negative effects of GMO products are well documented, the world over.

    • The worst is yet to come! Eating laboratory food, surely cancer is on the horizon.

      12 left until PF are voted overwhelmingly out of power democratically. Laboratory food is as bad as plastic. Visionless for sure!

      The Skeleton Key
      ~206~

    • President Levy Mwanawasa (MHSRIP) stood up to pressure from the West and refused GMO foods in Zambia. We should not allow ignorant people to now allow GMO’s. Yes GMO’s are resistant to pests etc and are good business for Monsanto but they have also been linked to cancer.Ofcourse research nowadays is based on who is funding you and Big companies like Monsanto and big pharmaceutical companies will not allow anything that stands in their way of business to see the light of day…Lets not just insult Nawakwi for the sake of it.It’s better to make informed decisions.

  2. Nawakwi is one person who can not be taken siriours on whatever she says. Prio to 20/01/2015 byelections, she promised miners when campaining in Solwezi that they shudnt run out of the country because she will reves the increaments om tax the PF wanted. Today she says we should close our mines for they dont benefit us. And now blaming the GMOs which nobody has said so from the govt said. Tomoro she will say we need GMOs for our pipo to survive. Nawakwi is a goña polititian.

  3. Zambians please let us not just comment for the sake of it. Read the advert in the Papers by Shoprite then you can comment. In Zambia GMOs are not allowed. The PF Government has made the National Biosafety Authority operational which MMD failed. Now this Authority requires that every company that imports any food stuff that may contain GMOs or may have been made from GMO raw materials must be cleared first. Now this process of clearing involves both scientific and public consultations like the advert itself by Shoprite. Now Nawakwi without any plan as a leader just jumps on the issue and condemns PF. Has she read the Biosafety Act No. 10 of 2007? Does she know what it says? Has she read the Statutory Instrument on import of food and feed? She should read these laws first!

  4. Nawakwi and the friends in the opposition should learn to exhibit strong and alternative leadership. Jumping on an issue and condemning PF wont work! Remember your friend in Greece whom you supported because of a statement he issued which you didn’t even read properly has lost and gracefully for him he has resigned. Nawakwi and her friends in opposition are not offering any alternatives but just condemning, You are headed for a loss next year. Please resign give chance to others to try! are you the only one with wisdom in those Parties? Surely a political party that can’t renew its leadership after more than four rejections is not worth it. Opposition parties don’t have any new strategy and plan. If they had they would choose new leadership to deliver! Some parties only know hate

  5. osango bwetuka cabe iwe mkazi. just go and breastfeed the babies at home instead of telling us false stories

  6. Unbelievable. Foresight in economic planning is very important. GMO restrictions present the only non tariff barrier to protect the local Zambian agricultural and food industry against unfair competition from some big economies in the region.

  7. with the change in weather, GMOs would make alot of sense in enhancing food security and equally in bringing down food prices which have a trickle down effect on poverty levels, inflation and such> Not everything genetically masturbated is bad!

  8. moreover “let he who has not eaten gmo food cast the first stone”! Alot of food comes into the country and not everything is tested, nor do we have effective technology to ascertain that what we thrust down our throats is all natural!

  9. Consequences of GMOs is disaster for our future generations.
    This attitude by PF is cancerous to the nation.

    Late Sata never cared about improving UTH facilities and specialists to manage it because he had his state of the art mini hospital at state house or at will travelled to any country on earth for medication. Common Zambians died in Zambia due to lack of medication.
    PF government’s attitude is financial reckless as they spend loans to sustain luxuries of seeking medical abroad leaving all of us suffer in Zambia. Today GMOs is proposed with long term to come over our posterity as a nation. Sata never cared soon died, Edigar Lungu knows his fate, he can’t care less.
    Legacy of PF is disaster for Zambia.

  10. There are no well documented side effects of GMOs. The main issue with GMOs is that you are handing over food security to a multinational company. But this is already the case. Ask any farmer if they can replant maize grown from commercial seed. The cancer rumors are a hoax. We are too emotional when it comes to some of these issues. GMOs will solve the dependence on rainfall

  11. Of late I have observed Edith has stopped addressing Edgar as HE The president of Zambia but she has opted to be addressing him as defence minister. Has she also failed to accept that Edgar is now the republican president who will be that seat till 2021. Lots of hate among opposition leaders in Zambia.

  12. Masks has got issues. This woman is useless, no wonder Sata used to call her all sorts of names.

  13. @ Sponge bob. I was equally perturbed whether she was refering to a different person. Such belittling is common to failures as they see nothing else except the seat they are eyeing. She is a nonstarter, a failure and therefore none of her so called ” checks and balances” can be taken seriously due to her regular inclusion of the political element.

  14. Nawakwi, why are you exposing your ignorance in public?
    Do you know that the eggs or white chickens you have been buying from the markets are all genetically modified? So why the noise?

  15. Nawakwi and HH know that they will never be presidents of this nations thats why they never care about what they say or do . Those who mean well should just ignore them. To those who doubt me should check their files when they were in public offices.

  16. And finally even majority of our beautiful girls on the streets are now genetically modified foods. We buy from them and eat them and yet we don’t complain.

  17. Did you know ?

    South africa eats full GMO. The USA eats full GMO. Are we saying we are the only geniuses who feel the effects if GMO have not been properly researched ?

    Nay, we are falling behind in terms of technological advancements. Most of the world has been eating GMO for close to 20 years !!

    GMO maize yields 15t per hectare. Our maize national average is below 3t per hectare and our farmers die poor. Without explicit scientific evidence to the contrary, how do we make political noise ? Its as if the USA deliberately feeds contaminants to its citizens despite having the best laws, laboratories, etc in the world ? Do we have a better life span then them ?

    Not to mention the pesticides, insecticides, etc that we currently use in Zambia which are mainly sourced from…

  18. Mrs Nawakwi. We import generic drugs from China and India without those having undergone testing and approval in Zambia.

    We drink imported milk. We eat imported cheese in Shoprite. What feed do you think those cows are eating in South Africa. The improvers in all our bread. The flavourants in our coca-cola. Wake up and stop making noise if you dont know what you are talking about !

    South Africa is full GMO. So is the wheat in your bakers biscuits ! Eat sum mor, tennis, marie etc. And your corn flakes. And the milk in your chocolates like Cadburys ! Youve been eating these things from Shoprite for close to 20 years !!

  19. Many zambian ladies now use infant formula milk instead of breastfeeding. Full GMO was fed to those cows. The sugar in our imported sweets is full GMO. the cotton in our salaula is full GMO.

    The crude saladi which comes to our refiners like Ole and Zamanita is from Argentina. Full GMO.

    All our sauces. All the imported pre-cut frozen chips from South Africa ?

    Having chewed on these foods for so long, Nawakwi whose grown
    Plump on these foods, thinks she is now so clever for her self. Lol

  20. The issue of GMO has never been a health issue.

    Only Syngenta and Monsanto have the technology to make GMO seeds. Now imagine we use this in Zambia and our farmers get tenfold yield increases. Slowly our indigenous seeds get obsolete and we are then totally at the mercy of western GMO companies. In the event of a war, they can starve us to death.

    They can price as they please and we will have lost our own indigenous seed.

    THIS IS THE ISSUE WITH GMO DEPENDENCE!!!

  21. Android Developer

    Kitwe, Zambia Company is seeking a strong Android developer to work on brand new development projects. Must have very good Ruby skills and will build, design and develop mobile/web new applications in a highly transactional, highly scalable environment for critical core products. The application will be developed and all the features functionalities from scratch. This will be an agile experience. This will be a 60/40 partnership. The developer will have 60% and we will have 40% of the business. Interested please email us.

    [email protected]

  22. The best comments on GMOs can only be those bordering on scientific evidence.Anything less is sheer politicking and downright baseless.If GMOs are demons to be fought then we must admit we lost the battle because we’ve been and will always be a dependant economy.Thus the best we can do is to accept GMOs have come and are here to stay and we can only help by devising effective ways of managing the situation. And we can likely apply similar policy and management approaches to other so called contentious issues such as gayism, prostitution, etc which unfortunately whose war against them is exercise in futility since the forces promoting them are too strong for us

  23. All I understand from this, is the alarmist challenge to gov’t is based on ‘Planned’ and an advert by Shoprite. It does not seem to be the case in reality.

    If all we are doing here is ‘trying’ to prevent the gov’t from fobbing us off with GMO’s then let’s just say so. If we have evidence that had indeed happened then let’s go March on the streets in protest (something you could arrange, perhaps)?

    Just to clarify, we are behind you on this but alarming people and false allegations are damaging to your credibility.

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading