By Pamela Bwembya
I was led to believe Antonio Mwanza’s main reason for choosing to work with ECL instead of Mama Nawakwi was because the gentleman saw no future whatsoever in hanging around our mother. It appears, on 20th January, 2018, it finally dawned on Antonio that his children were growing old, and so were their needs. The PF-induced economic underperformance was not sparing anyone from opposition parties that tried to speak against PF misrule like Antonio and ba Mama Nawakwi used to. While this was happening, HH seemed untouched financially. The best those in power could try to do was search for reasons to lock him up and throw away the key. Earlier attempts to break him psychologically or physically failed miserably.
It is true that there are many ways to skin a cat, but in our case the real culprit that requires skinning in many ways is not a cat but a rat. Antonio had a big reception, yet his former boss did not require a public defection to start partaking of whatever the rats were enjoying. With bated breath, I waited for the two to start attacking each other after finally finding themselves on opposing sides. That was not to be; instead, their voices got louder in the same direction. How could someone who has never been in government become the perfect Aunt Sally for all those that had failed to make a notable dent in the fight against PF misrule?
Step back and look at those that try very hard to paint HH black. Think of some of the shameful things they have done. If they were to trade places with Hakainde Hichilema for a single day, would they survive their adulterous and criminal past? When all else fails the poor citizen should not rule because of his tribe! Com’on we can do better than that. Of course he is not a saint but he is many times more principled than those who only threaten to side with the people when their personal interests are threatened.
On 11th March, 2013, the then Zambian President Michael Sata surprised the nation by waving a private citizens bank statement to the world. The President believed HH had possibly stolen public funds. The K360 million or $67 million was too much to be genuinely acquired wealth. Of course the Dollar was only at ZMW5,40 rebased then. Please allow me to digress a little; I have always wondered why ZMK became ZMW. My mind tells me it’s probably because of a little symbol my elder sister and her friends used to depict sex when we were young. They would put a capital M on top of a capital W. I think whoever assigns these codes knew a nation was about to be f#cked! I think that is how the M found itself next to the W. As we speak the M is on top of the W.
Honestly, how possible was it for a person that never worked or served in government to steal such colossal amounts from the state without a single shushu raising an eyebrow and whispering something to the political leaders of the time? HH could have only pulled such a stunt if he had collaborators in government. Edith Nawakwi was Minister of Finance from 1998 to 1999 before being transferred to the Ministry of Labour by FTJ. I know for sure that Edith and HH owned neighboring smallholding lots in Lusaka West were they tried to outdo each other in nation-building agricultural enterprises. Those days Nawakwi was the better and richer of the two. Paprika was the in crop those days. HH tried Paprika, inkoko shama loan, and mushrooms in a small barn that revealed his rare tenacity. Could the two have been in some schemes that left one of them with immense bitterness against the other?
HH had a white 10 ton Leyland truck and a beige Toyota Hilux double cab. The truck was used to ferry young animals from Southern Province (Kalomo I believe) to a newly acquired farm in Chisamba. Talk about foresight, the man did this religiously knowing very well that animals grow and multiply when taken care of. The man was still CEO of Grant Thornton Zambia. Around that time the man had ordered a black Nissan Safari and a 7 ton tipper truck from the UK for himself.
I believe the 7 litre Nissan Safari was meant to take the place of horses for the Zambian cowboy.
When the two vehicles arrived, the man wasted no time to run adverts in the Zambia Daily Mail and the Times for Sand and crushed stone deliveries around Lusaka. His little girl, Miyanda (Mimi), was then in Kindergarten at a school in Rhodes Park. He already had his Serval Rd house but was building a house on the Woodlands end of Burma Road and another on Mutende Road. Contrary to popular belief, the man built most of his early houses.
The interesting part of current debates is how the debates are no longer about how HH made his money but about how he used his legally generated wealth. This is one aspect citizens fail to see. The Mosi O Tunya hotel and Pheluna issues are not about HH stealing somebody’s property, NO! They are about someone using his legally earned wealth to acquire more property or assets which end up making the local investor even richer. Some of the accusations are about disadvantaging a family somewhere despite the “disadvantaged” clearing the air on how things happened.
I shudder when I think of how things will turn out when the efforts that have been made towards denying HH a chance to aspire for political office are finally turned on the real culprits. Zambia will always have a lot of ba mushanina bwali. Should we honestly expect some of our political petty (I didn’t say political party) leaders to finally start going door to door looking for gainful employment after Zambians finally rise up to take back their country this August?
For your own information, had HH been wanting on tax returns, he would have been penniless years back. Some of the people making noise about HH have been in government for a long time with possibly few tax trails to leave them unscathed when the wheels of justice finally starts grinding slowly after them. The mushanina bwalis including the mosquito-like irritants are yet to squeal like human pigs again. It’s just a matter of time, they will make their apologies and start pretending to be useful to our justice system again.
For our current leaders, the issue will not be about how they used “legally” obtained wealth to amass more wealth, neither will it be about how they disadvantaged a family of willing buyers. It will be about how they illegally amassed wealth and bankrupted an entire nation.
I don’t know what it is about Hakainde Hichilema that forces people to go on wild hunts for hidden skeletons in his life. I always ask myself why and how governments have failed to find one case of adultery, or an impregnated auditor straight from college, or even a tax return that was forged. Are we not dealing with a very principled citizen who has become the target of unprincipled politicians in our country?
NONE OF US DESERVES TO BE HARASSED LIKE HAKAINDE HAS BEEN HARASSED OVER HIS DESIRE TO HELP PUT OUR COUNTRY BACK ON THE RAILS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGAIN.
PB…always in national interest.