
Patriotic Front (PF) leader, Michael Sata, has charged that the deplorable poverty levels that traditional leaders and people of Eastern province have continued being subjected to, was clear evidence that President Rupiah Banda was not Zambian.
Mr. Sata pointed out that the uncaring attitude exhibited by Mr. Banda towards people of Eastern province, where he claims to hail from, shows that the republican president was a foreigner who has only become too comfortable in a foreign country.
He said Mr. Banda’s father was Zimbabwean while his mother was from Malawi.
Speaking on Hot FM this morning, the PF leader, Michael Sata, said that it was shocking that President Rupiah Banda had failed to mourn close to 40 people who died in a road traffic accident July 27 in Nyimba area on the Great East road.
Mr. Sata said it was inconceivable that a President who claims to be an Easterner could fail to mourn his own people when he has, in the past, been finding it fitting to put together two aircrafts to travel for “funerals” in the Eastern province.
Mr. Sata has asked which people Mr. Banda has been mourning in the Eastern province if he could not see this as an emergency that needed his urgent attention. Mr Sata further said that Mr. Banda should have quickly travelled to join in the mourning of the 38 lives which were lost in what he claimed to be his province. Mr. Sata also charged that that Mr. Banda saw it fit to rush to go and commission the Dangote Cement mine on the Copperbelt because of the corrupt benefits that he has seen in the project.
On corruption , Mr Sata said that President Rupiah Banda had continued with his chain of corrupt activities since assuming office three years ago with the latest being the awarding of a K5 trillion housing project to an insignificant company to construct housing units in North Western province.
[pullquote]“If he wants, let him talk about what I did when I was Minister and what he did for the nation when he occupied Ministerial positions in the past. He cannot match my achievements.”[/pullquote]
Mr sata said that President Banda, working with one of his sons, had awarded the US$1bn contract to Savenda Management Services. Savenda, owned by a Zambian national, has a track record in providing corporate branded ware such as t-shirts to local companies.
The PF leader emphasized that this was the second huge and dubious deal involving State House and the first family in a space of four months following the awarding of a US$98 million contract to some Kenyan business people to refurbish Zambia National Building Society in Lusaka.
On his personal achievement, the PF leader said that he had achieved a lot more successes in his political life than Rupiah Banda even when the PF president has never occupied the office republican President.
Mr. Sata has advised Mr. Banda to stop misleading Zambians by challenging him to show what he has done against what he (Mr. Banda) claims to have achieved when Mr. Sata has never been President.
“If he wants, let him talk about what I did when I was minister and what he did for the nation when he occupied ministerial positions in the past. He cannot match my achievements.”
[From PF Press release]