The opposition UPND has called for concerted efforts in mobilising resources for relief food in hunger-stricken areas.
UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema says there is need for stakeholders to work together and ensure that adequate resources are raised for relief efforts.
Mr. Hichilema said this in a statement that the hunger situation which has been brought about by drought can be addressed with the unity of purpose.
“We call on Mr. Edgar Lungu and his Government to immediately declare the hunger situation in the country as a national disaster inorder to galvanize international support. The hunger situation in our country due to drought and other factors is attaining unprecedented levels not witnessed in a long time in this region,” Mr Hichilema said.
“Government should not shy away from calling for international support to avert severe starvation that is taking a heavy toll on the population.”
“This is a none partisan matter that needs concerted efforts inorder to mobilise resources to help our starving citizens across the country. We can only raise such resources if the Executive can be bold enough to raise an alarm to both our local and international cooperating partners that we need urgent assistance to deal with a disaster on our hands.”
He added, “In our own small way and using our connections, we can also help in driving this agenda to mobilise resources locally, regionally and in the international community to seek for help. Let’s not play politics on such matters when citizens are starving to death. There is no winner or loser in such situations if we all come together and ask for international assistance to help our vulnerable communities on the verge of starvation.”
“Let us for once take a common stand and put our political differences aside for the sake of our citizens inorder to attain this object to avert an impending life threatening situation. Please let the Executive declare hunger as national disaster immediately.”
As usual, prophet of doom, the delusional dictator HH.
@Olivia how are you doing? I miss you and all the ladies, especially @Nubian Princess. The women with value.
The ICO has also already called on the government to declare a hunger situation you deranged imbecile. People are phucking starving here and you are calling someone a prophet of doom when the doom is already happening? PF supporters and their atom-sized brains are just something else.
Get real fake Pope, people are eating weeds!
Just declare the whole country a national disaster, when the opposition call for this you call them prophets of doom, what are you going to call the British Envoy who has made a similar call? You are going to do so because of your inferiority complex, muzungu akamba, that is why even some brains in this country are a disaster to the nation. Things that you can see clearly as national disaster you are foolishly arguing because you are eating the crumbs of the thieving and corrupt regime?
100% in agreement with you HH on the being non partisan and working as a one nation in resolving the hunger situation in Zambia.
God bless Zambia.
Declare Paradise Papers Plunder Panama and theft by public servant a public disaster.
In what capacity is your “Mr. Lungu” going to make that declaration?
Hakainde and team, better stop the bitterness and move on. More elections are coming.
You enjoy being referred to as president Hichilema when you are just a party president but your colleague is both party and Republican president.
Don’t forget that some areas had good harvests.
Agricultural yields are going down ,population is going up and Lungu’s trips are increasing his detachment from Zambia’s brutal realities.I see a crisis of lack of vision and lack of leadership with 3 sharply diverging curves.
Govt must stop giving fertilizer to farmers FISP
Let private sector get involved they way they do with tobacco and cotton.
Right now people that benefit from fisp are pf connected ONLY. Major maize producers use their own money to buy inputs.
Israel has no rain but they export food because they take farming as a science not politics
Thats the kind of contributions we expect from you mr hakainde.
Declaring nation disaster is no a solution. Dont turn hunger situation into politics just because you want to become a president of Zambia
You are proposing a long term solution, but people are hungry today bro!
@Mwape. Govt is already doing that.
In southern which was most hit by drought, every houshold is entitled to buy a bag pf maize at k110.
That price is heavily subsidised and NOT sustainable
The only thing that is going on well in this country is the construction of roads but are a vey huge debt burden on the tax payers and ordinary citizens
Sub-standard roads.
Let private companies peovide agric support. They will buy fertilizer and seed and give a farmer
The farmer will only supply land and labour.
The purchase price has to be agreed even in dollars and fra should have no role.
The maize producers must also enter contrac with millers on price and quantity.
The excess has to be exported and bring forex into the country.
Every miller must sign up enough stocks upto next season.
Experts can refine these ideas
Your ideas sound good when you don’t involve politics. I would listen to you, I’m no expert tho.
HH has for the first time spoken about drought. Now he undertsands that PF cannot control rain. Rain is from God almighty.
The picture above, what does it tell us? Look at the way he is looking at the crop as if there is anything he can do which others never did! Bwana that’s a natural disaster which you do not have any control over, just suggest other ways of irrigation maybe, but that’s a costly thing which will entail that you close all your off shore accounts and help the farmers with water wells and irrigation pipes……naya inee
I just couldn’t resist commenting as a farmer myself…that look right there comrade is one of despair and empathy! I have seen that look in many farmers faces when faced with such troubles.
@just looking , people like you are so simplistic in thinking that is why the useless PF govt has convinced you that load shedding is as a result of low water levels. What happened to planning? If the morons running govt had a plan one farming season would produce enough crop for another 5 years. Drought is cyclic
Give him a break you m0r0ns, he can’t even look at how the crops will yield, very laughable and petty
Prophet of doom. Delusional Satamic F00L!
Exactly what is delusional about a drought situation?
(HH) is delusional. He blames the PF government for causing the drought. He’s desperate like the devil.
He’s making you delusional.
Mr.Kudos, you are the delusional f00l. HH os blaming the PF for lack of planning. They even sold the little maize they had in sheds under instructions form the clueless clients’ money stealing Edgar Lungu. since the massive land shedding of 2015, how much solar power is ZESCO-PF generating. PF has no capacity to plan!!
(HH) blames the government for the drought and poor harvest.
(HH) can bring rain if you elect him into office. No more poor rainfall.
(HH) will make the price of Copper go above $20,000
(HH) will take us to heaven.
But first you have to vote him into State House before he shows you how to do it.
Indeed you deserve to be called Mr Kudos because the levels of understanding are truly appalling! At what point does he blame our government for the drought?? Your comment has the ability to mislead people…let’s be quick to listen/read and slow to speak mwebantu!
Tex Mex, I wouldn’t bother replying. He thinks everyone who opposes PF is cadre. Most of us are not, we just want is good for the country.
@kudos, In a revoultion people of your thinking standard would be used as charcoal. If you need help getting out of the country holla coz clearly you are a stumbling block to the Country’s progress and there are millions of you. Damn it! Shetani nibwebo chi colour.
My white Swiss wife and I tried to help many Zambians and fought for food security on a voluntary basis but all we met with was resistance from the corrupt pf party. So we packed our bags and left for green Europe. You can’t help a black person especially African. They are stubborn. My white wife says she is lucky to find a level headed caring man like me
I love her
The people that benefit from farming input support program are politics cardres.
By contract they are bound to sell the the grain to FRA. But instead they choose higher bidders.
So govt is losing out.
Thats why IMF has advised PF govt to remove subsidisy on farming inputs
Its a big drain . Its a bottomless pit.
“We call on Mr. Edgar Lungu and his Government to… ”
Still in denial?? How does one expect progress from a person filled with so much hate??? Badaala, you are not a leader who can appeal to the entire nation.
Bitter Hakiende h with his inherited under 5 party, no vice president, chief vuvuzela and frightened cadres aka mps, the man who gave ‘infestment’ advise and national silver was sold for a song is at it again. ‘Using our connections…’ beware about these ‘connections’ state capture begins in small doses those ‘connections’ will are not free there is no ‘free lunch’. Being a board room calculator chap he should know better. Go liaise with Disaster Management Unit to ensure the Zambians in southern province do not starve to death, oh forgot you have declared a boycott on national events. “Declare this…am giving you 48 hours…let me get to plot 1….I want to be at kuomboka” laughable!
One wonders how this man has been accorded the intelligence tag? Just like our late president Mwanawasa said to the Germans, “My people think that you can only grow maize from rain”, and winter maize project was introduced. How on earth do you declare hunger situation because of the failure of one crop? So if these people ate sweet potatoes, cassava, rice, yams, pumpkins as a substitute, they would die? You can take HH out of the village but you cannot take the village mentality out of him. Intelligent people can see through the vulnerability of this man. It would have served him more purpose in preaching food diversity and how to avoid hunger than telling people that the failure of rains is due to poor leadership.
Future_!diot, so what you are saying is these other crops you have mentioned and are not grown full scale in Zambia and are more expensive to cultivate than Maize on a scale to feed the whole nation, will not need rain to grow? How is it possible people can be this daft please??? PF? WTF is wrong with your brains??
And who do you expect to implement those !diotic solutions of yours? HH or the government? Urgently grow a brain mune.
Crop diversification has always been a PF talking point. They just TALK. No action so why talk about something that is only rhetoric and leave out the reality of the current hunger because of the continued POOR PLANNING of this PATHETIC DULL GOVERNMENT??
Am at a loss for words…has living in a foreign country really made you that dull?? Isn’t Maize the staple crop in Zambia, isn’t that what your relatives back in the village eat on a daily basis? Food diversity yes but at the end of the day…ubwali, ka five finger is boss!!
@Dudelove and Tex fimofimo, why am I not surprised with your answers? typical vi fontini. These crops already exist and people look at them as snacks. Who told you that you will die if you substitute your ubwali at the time of crop failure? Yaba Ku schoolu muyendela chani? Typical vicopo answers. I’m sure people in the villages will tell you that they are already eating sweet potato or cassava nsima.
I think I can identify the regular paid PF bloggers
Mr Kudos, Njimbu,Zambian Citizen etc
Lets hope you have been saving for your retirement in 2021.As things stand the PF have large arrears for the retirees.
After 2021, you will be at the back of the retirement line also waiting for your benefits.
HH leads, others follow. out of his advise others have done it but the ever no visions are still wondering what is going on. just declare, no one will lough at you. kikiki awe mwandi ni confusion. why pretending.
The likes of ‘Pope’, Sharon, Kudos, Zambian citizen are back from hibernation – and still taking matters out of context for their own pathological satisfaction. The mere mention of HH in a negative reference, even when he has been objective about a serious matter, ensures that they get their daily fix, including orgasmic shudders.
HH, never heard him being so emotional, is it because of the region most affected? And we have heard that from British H.C . Cochrane Dyet, why is HH repeating?
And Mr Lungu, he means President Lungu if course? Still does not recognise the President? But he refers to his Executive and his government. That executive and government have a head called the President, the same guy who defeated him. So HH is contradicting himself if he calls for help from people he does not recognise the very same person who leadz the government.