Zambia Is 1,000 Times Poorer Than In 1991 - Luonde

Anglican priest and National Democratic Congress (NDC) national chairperson Fr Richard Luonde has described Zambia as “1,000 times poorer” than it was in 1991 when the country first opened up to multiparty democracy.

He says this is largely due to corrupt leaders regarding politics as a “cash cow” and not a public service.

The outspoken minister accused top figures in the Patriotic Front (PF) of stealing from Zambian citizens. 

“This criminal reign of PF is coming to pass and a new order of thinkers and not liars will begin to reorganise and move the nation forward. This government has held us to ransom, it is time to show them that we have the power through the vote,” he said in an interview. 

He added: “I see a new breed of leaders with brilliant ideas; a team of patriots that will save the country. And these leaders can only be in the opposition alliance, certainly not in PF. The ruling party is now a collection of political garbage that has piled up over the years. And this garbage has found solace in the PF because there is open corruption,”

The attack is evocative of criticisms levelled against President Lungu in 2016, when it was revealed that the head of state had increased his personal wealth by K13 million during his first 15 months in office. Mr Lungu’s personal fortune was revealed to have grown from K10.9 million in 2015, to K23.7 million in 2016, with no discernible change in his personal circumstances. 

Fr Luonde went on to lament that the PF had deviated massively from the pro-poor agenda of its former leader President Michael Sata. 

“PF today is shredded to pieces that one cannot bring together. Great [Michael] Sata’s pro-poor manifesto is no longer there. It is now all about looting, corruption, lies; even forgetting that they told the same lie yesterday because their lies are in trillions, violence, the economy in a shambles and no one is telling us why it is so,” he said.