Hichilema didn’t pick best personal advisors, says Laura
By Fanny Kalonda
LAURA Miti has observed that President Hakainde Hichilema did not pick the best personal advisors he could have.
Miti, who is Alliance for Community Action executive director, says some in President Hichilema’s team are too junior in terms of experience “to be of any use to him”.
“Others are known to be plain dodgy,” Miti, who is also a Human Rights commissioner noted yesterday. “Since President Hichilema came to office, my biggest unhappiness with him has been some of his appointments. I just cannot wrap my head around some of the choices he makes. This is someone who, himself, comes across as extremely astute, self-disciplined, respectful of principles (except time keeping) and commanding respect.”
Writing on her Facebook wall, Miti said “despite all our issues, none of his current rivals can compete with him for clear, directional thinking and just being a leader”.
“Then, you look at some of the people he has given critical offices. You wonder – just how, Sir, do you expect to get anything done, if this who should do it? There is no other way of putting it, except for a paltry few, President Hichilema did not pick the best personal advisors he could have. Some in his team are too junior, in terms of experience, to be of any use to him. Others are known to be plain dodgy. As for his communication function, everything that can has been said about it. Monga nidala (as if it’s deliberate),” wrote Miti. “There are Ministers whose disappearance, for a few years, we would not notice. Others we know only for bungling their portfolios. Many Permanent Secretaries have no business being controlling officers. So one asks – why can’t this President do with all his appointments what he did with the excellent Finance sector? Is it a case of someone placing loyalty above all else? Anyway, for now, can our money be protected from the new set of scavangers that are ravaging it? Find us a person with the skills, respect and ability Minister Musokotwane brings to his office to, first, PREVENT and then punish theft of public money. If our money does not stop flowing out of the Treasury like from a burst pipe, this, for me, will be a failed presidency.”
You can only pick what is available among the cowhands. Running a ranch is no joke,Laura!!!
It is also my concern, ba Laura. This thieving which seems deeply imbedded in our DNA. We even have high regard for thieves and plunderers. What kind of people are we?
True, if President HH cannot effectively protect our national treasury, then his would be a failed presidency. PF plundered the treasury and it seems like they have gotten away with it. Three years downstream, there are no convictions and the property forfeitures have become the easy way out. They surrender a small portion of the plunder just to hoodwink us into believing that something significant has been done. They roam freely thereafter.
Meanwhile a new set of thieves and plunderers have taken over to carry on from where PF left off.
The offices responsible for fighting corruption and economic offences should not be blindsided by the President’s usual statement that big thieves are found in Lusaka. This time around big thieves are everywhere in Zambia because of the huge CDF funds. The true picture of current corruption and current massive looting will only be known when UPND is out of power. When it will be the turn for corrupt UPND officials and the connected others to dance “pelete”. It appears that corruption is a Zambian infectious disease.