Nevers Mumba’s Open Letter to the President Lungu on COVID-19
April 21, 2020 0
Mr.President,
This is not Politics. It’s not about winning or losing elections. It is about saving Zambian lives.
I write this, knowing well that I may sound like a lonely voice in the wilderness or a broken record, but I will say it again.
Mr President, the current interventions we have put in place to stop the spread of the Coronavirus are grossly insufficient. The city center, market places, compounds, public transportation have remained crowded. We MUST lock down Lusaka for a period of time to help us put in place measures that shall curtail the virus from spreading across the country. We still have a small window to achieve this.
This is the third warning we are giving to government. We should not be deceived by the few numbers of infections we are announcing at the press briefings. This virus is deadly and we don’t have capacity to deal with a fully blown pandemic.
COVID-19 may be the burial ground for the PF government. If the virus is not contained and the country begins to lose unprecedented number of lives, no Zambian shall forgive the PF government because they have been warned several times.
The government has only now, announced the mandatory wearing of masks. As important as this measure is, more than ten million of our people cannot afford these masks. Government has made no adequate arrangements to provide these masks for the poor who are the most vulnerable.
We urge government to adopt a systematic way of distributing the masks. We encourage the private sector, churches to play their part in providing masks to the most vulnerable, but government must lead the way.
The perception of wide circles of our society is that Patriotic Front Party, your party has jumped on this unfortunate vulnerability to make masks using their campaign material.
Mr.President, we would like remind you that Zambians consider all such acts being carried out by senior or prominent members of the ruling party as insensitive, immoral and an abuse of power.
Lastly, Mr.President, we do realise that any serious attempts to lock down the epicentre WILL require serious resources that can adequately cover the cost of feeding or distributing food packs to communities in affected areas.While this is at a huge cost, the cost of dealing with a fully blown pandemic will be much much worse and it will be completely UNMANAGEABLE.
The success of this life or death exercise lies in its being apolitical and free from limited partisan interests. I end with a quote from the WHO Director General, “ Please do not politicize the COVID-19 fight other wise you shall end up with more body bags. Please quarantine politics away from this fight..”
Again, for the third time, Mr President , shut down the most affected cities and contain this virus and let us fight this invisible enemy together.
Yours in the fight,
Nevers Sekwila Mumba
MMD, President