By Francis Chipalo
Parliament was on Wednesday 19th February, 2025 treated to some drama courtesy of the ruling UPND Members of Parliament and ministers from President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration who walked out of the house in avoidance of discussing a motion on the high cost of living in the country.
A lot of commentators, stakeholders and general citizenry have voiced out their disappointments on the walk- out by those in power on an issue that has everything to do with people’s livelihoods.
It is not a secret that the cost of living in Zambia has skyrocketed with majority of citizens failing to make ends meet.
If you may recall, the UPND when opposition promised to among others, lower the cost of living and displayed all kinds of pre-packed foot items from mealie- meal to cooking oil as a way of mocking the Patriotic Front for allegedly failing to address cost of living. They instead assured that they would lower mealie – meal prices, stabilize the dollar etc.
Surprisingly, nothing much can be said about this as people have continued to live in abject poverty and can barely afford a meal due to high commodity prices for the country’s staple food and thereby necessitating for the need to quickly intervene to avoid further reports of famine like we have already heard from some parts of the country.
What happened in parliament on Wednesday is very unfortunate and disappointing to the say the least because it involves those who have been given the mandate by the Zambian people to govern.
But what kind of leadership is that when those in power are running away from talking about real issues affecting their people? If they chicken out from such important conversations, who then do they expect to respond to these concerns, the opposition?
The walkout from the house by our colleagues in government simply entails that they have failed in this area and the solution to them was taking a ‘walk of shame’ like they did.
Their act cannot be justified but they have given Zambians a signal. Instead of walking out from the house, they can as well walkout from the government since they appear not to have solutions even when they can boast of having performed better than the PF did thus far, but Zambians are watching.
There is nothing wrong in admitting that you have failed and clearly, our colleagues in government are showing us signs of failure and are probably waiting to be kicked out since they are too shy to admit this fact kwamana. 2026 is just around the corner.
My opinion!
The author is a journalist, media consultant and mental health activist
Contact; 0977203043
Email; francischipalo@rocketmail.com
