GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO THE STATE OF THE NATION STATEMENT BY THE CATHOLIC BISHOPS

THE New Heritage Party wishes to commend the Catholic Bishops for their State of the Nation Statement. The statement was not only forthright and to the point but synthesised in the one document, all areas of concern that have been raised by a broad spectrum of Zambians.

We wish to ask other civil society organisations to emulate this example of speaking primarily for Zambians in an uncompromising, objective and non-partisan way as has been the Church in this instance.

We have taken note of the government’s response to the statement. The responses offered were without much substance and left us the citizens more bewildered and perplexed than before.

It is unfortunate that Government has missed a golden opportunity to articulate its position on the pertinent issues raised by the spiritual fathers and to give an adequately satisfactory response to the critical questions contained in that statement.

Zambians were looking forward to be given hope by receiving re-assuring responses but alas, that was not to be.

Government instead; i) Chose to sound clever over some - for example when asked about rising poverty levels in the country, the response was that since the UPND came into office over a year ago, inflation has since climbed down from double to single digit and the CDF is now at K28.3 million per constituency.

The Catholic Bishops know that inflation has “climbed” down but in spite of that, they still posed the question implying that regardless of the figure of inflation, the cost of living is still very high. ii) Glossed over some:

- for example when asked about tribalism and regionalism, the response was that Government has been emphatic over the One Zambia One Nation Motto and that the appointments of citizens to various positions of responsibility is proof of what the government is doing. The “proof” referred to is not evident hence this matter being raised by the highly revered clergy.

- Another example of glossing over is the question with regard to the fight against corruption. The government’s response was that tremendous progress has been made, but in the same breath are running away from responsibility and in their usual careless manner have opted to pass the buck and blame the judiciary for their failure as the executive branch to point at any significant successful prosecution of any of the numerous suspects that have been arrested so far.

iii) Completely ignored others, for example:

- Issue of moral decay where no response was offered

- Human Rights situation again, where no response was proffered,

We, therefore, demand that Government come back to the people and provide adequate responses to the issues raised in the Pastoral Letter as Zambians actually want to hear responses that speak to the issues and not the tired verbal gymnastics contained in the Minister of Information’s statement.