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{
    "id": 48056,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/48056/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 265,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Lesrima",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Ministry of State for Provincial Administration and Internal Security",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 178,
        "legal_name": "Simon Saimanga Lesirma",
        "slug": "simon-lesirma"
    },
    "content": " Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, thank you for giving me this opportunity. I want to congratulate Mr. Namwamba for coming up with this Motion to appoint a Select Committee to deal with this very complex and urgent issue, for which none of us has answers now but collectively, we can contribute to it. Madam Temporary Deputy Speaker, I also want to congratulate the immediate speaker, Mr. Mututho. He has raised crucial issues. I hope that he will be able to give the Committee the insight into some of the issues touching on corruption, and that affects the prices of food in this country. I would like to say that although we are talking about the long-term and short- term issues and proposals to be made by this Committee, of immediate concern as of now is the cost of fuel. We are told that the cost of fuel can come down if inefficiency in the supply chain is addressed. This is the song we have been hearing over the last one or two months. I would urge this Committee to look into that, because we are told that very soon the prices of fuel will go up again. Hon. Members have also talked about downsizing of the Cabinet. I think this is in order, and in line with the current constitutional dispensation that we are in. I do not see any reason why we cannot downsize the Grand Coalition Government to conform to the Constitution. We need to look into reduction of the Budget and deal with the fiscal and monetary issues. We should reduce the Budget to deal with some of these issues. Look at our wages, including our own allowances, if we are to depoliticize this issue, we ourselves also need to set an example by sitting without allowances. I am just giving one of the examples. The other one is to reduce salaries. This has happened in countries like Korea. When they had serious issues like this, very drastic measures were taken, including reduction of salaries. We also need to assess those in this country who earn what the Archbishop of Canterbury once called the wages of sin, the ridiculous salaries that are earned by a number of people in various sectors, particularly in parastatals."
}