Hakainde Hichilema destroying Anderson Mazoka’s legacy
and how IMF will destroy Zambia
– Kasonde Mwenda C. EFF President
Anderson Mazoka a former Mining Conglomerate Director and founder of UPND had a vision and understood the strategic importance of mines and miners to the Zambian economy, something his successor Hakainde Hichilema is destroying at astronomical rate. Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND’s lack of seriousness towards the Mining Industry is a social-economic time bomb. His over-dependence and lack of a expansion plan for the mining industry is destroying the mining industry and if he does not change course soon he will plunge Zambia into untold misery and suffering because the Mining industry which is Zambia’s economic backbone is dying. As EFF we have visited over 203 mines and currently Zambia has the worst paid and abused miners. We have communicated to the government but they are too arrogant, and busy celebrating the IMF Loans to pay attention to the miner’s plight.
IMF is not a solution to our problems. We have been here before. In 1978 and 1983 under President Kenneth Kaunda, the IMF came and administered the Third National Development plan in this same manner they are doing today; subsidies were scraped off, kwacha was devalued as they are doing already. The end result was a rise in commodity prices ,food shortages began. KK had to abandon the IMF but had to go back to the in 1989 because the IMF creates dependency that destroys the order of a sound economy. Three years later, the people protested and kicked KK out of power the same way they are about to do to HH in 2026 if he continues in this path.
Let me ask a question. Where is the UPND going to get the money to pay back the IMF loan when the money they are getting from subsidies is going for consumption and Salaries? Have they set up a sinking fund they so talked about?
While our friends are planning on sending satellites to space and building nuclear plants, electric trains and advancement of technology, the UPND is talking about medieval cadre driven Cooperatives in this digital world as their mainstay not Industries or agricultural revolution. What shows how visionless they are. As a matter of fact, they are lying that the IMF loans are without conditions…there is no free lunch!
Infact there are two things that will happen if we fail to pay back IMF money:
1. Loss of Sovereignty : when a country fails to pay back the debt that was borrowed from International Monetary Fund, they lose all the rights to dictate what will be implemented in our country. Technically we will be under “colonial” rule again. Country sold.
2. Greater Inequality : under IMF rich individuals become rich as poor become more poor because only the rich ones are capable of affording to buy the government properties floated in Privatization and extreme Capitalism. A criminal society will be created as IMF brings deregulation that favours foreigner investors over local Zambians.
It is misleadership for Hakainde Hichilema’s UPND to forsake the Mines and plight of miners and start worshiping IMF loans. Zambia’s Economy since independence is driven by the Proceeds from the mines but the neglect of miners and Mines which was birthed by the PF has now been escalated to apocalyptical proportions under the Hakainde Hichilema mis-leadership.
This is how over dependence on IMF Loans is already destroying Zambia’s economy and lives of people:
1. MINES: with the temporal comfort that comes with borrowed IMF money, the UPND has already relaxed with complacency and no-longer pushing to resolve the impasse at KCM and Mopani where the mines are producing at quarter capacity despite surging Copper Prices on the International Market. To date President HH has not constituted a team to resolve Copperbelt mining problems or even summoned mine investors in Konkola or Mopani to State house for a talk because IMF loans have made him arrogantly comfortable.
2. ENERGY: Because of temporal comfort, INDENI has been disposed off since the government has IMF borrowed money to buy refined fuels and make their cadres who are middlemen rich at the expense of the Common citizen.
3. ECONOMY and INDUSTRIES: Since government has free access to borrowed money, the government knows that even if industries are not producing and no serious taxes coming in they will still have money. This is bad because the Economy becomes inactive and businesses collapse. Unfortunately, the government will not feel it until the time to pay comes and by then industries are already dead.
4. AGRICULTURE: At this rate, we may be importing maize because the government is comfortable that even if it kills the farming industry it will have money from the Loans to import maize at a high price. The problem is that this will cause poverty and many people will die of hunger.
Zambians have suffered a lot and it is painful to see another visionless leader destroying the country. It is time for a generational shift. Zambia needs a new mind set. Zambia needs Pan-African revolutionary leadership not IMF stooges who serve the interests of the west against their own people.
As Economic Freedom Fighters-EFF we believe in an economy driven and owned by Zambians and that is the opposite of what Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND government believes in. Among many things EFF will do is give free land to all Zambian citizens and create wealth from our own local priceless resources. We will revive industries and bring unrecycled leadership. We will open a fresh page for Zambia and emancipate Zambians from poverty and neo-colonialism the UPND is taking us back to. We have hope that refuses to die and we will do it.
“wherever we want to go, Our feet shall take us there”
Kasonde Mwenda C
Economic Freedom Fighters-EFF President