Insincere UPND told off
“Student loans are meant to act as revolving funds to help create opportunity and sponsorship for the next generation of students. By inciting those who got their education through such programmes not to pay, the UPND is blocking other prospective students from accessing tertiary education’’
IT IS immoral for the UPND to incite those who benefitted from students loans not to pay back because that is the only way Government can continue supporting other students who may not have the capacity to pay for themselves, the Youth in Action for Sustainable Development (YASD) has said. Commenting on the UPND’s statement inciting people who were on student loans at tertiary institutions against paying back, YASD programmes manager Zebedy Lukwesa accused the party of being insincere as it was among critics who were always blaming government for giving a limited number of bursaries to students due to financial constraints. Mr. Lukwesa said any well-meaning Zambian would realise that all loan schemes operated as revolving funds because that was the only way to sustain such programmes and challenged the UPND to point at any loan scheme which was not payable. He said by inciting professionals who went through loan schemes not to pay, the party was denying other prospective students who may not have resources to pay for themselves, a chance to attain tertiary education. “Student loans are meant to act as revolving funds to help create opportunity and sponsorship for the next generation of students. By inciting those who got their education through such programmes not to pay, the UPND is blocking other prospective students from accessing tertiary education on account that they cannot support themselves and this must not be condoned. “If UPND was patriotic toward the development of the country, they should have advocated for this. They cannot incite people not to pay back and then fail to provide an alternative on how such a programme can be sustained because that is being hypocritical. The UPND is not being sincere on this issue and must not be taken seriously,” Mr. Lukwesa said. He called on those who were supposed to pay back not to listen to political parties which had a hidden agenda of wanting government to fail to sustain the programme by looking at the bigger picture and realising that they would not have attained
Any well-meaning Zambian would realise that all loan schemes operated as revolving funds because that was the only way to sustain such programmes and challenged the UPND to point at any loan scheme which was not payable.