EXPOSED
[Hakainde – THE DEALER]
By Dr. Canisius Banda
Hakainde HICHILEMA is a dealer.
He badly needs our prayers.
An urgent mindset charge on his part is required.
For now let us ignore that IciBemba saying about ‘imputi isula.’
It won’t help us.
Whether he can successfully lead a nation or NOT is a matter of debate, it still is questionable. The jury is still out on this one.
You see, in the private sector, as one pursues personal capital and profits, a lot of wrongdoing occurs, and it is a lot easier to get away with it.
Remember instances like tax avoidance?
The same cannot be said about the public sector. In Zambia for example, there are about 18 million pairs of eyes, all watching you, scrutinising every little move that you make.
The trouble with Hakainde HICHILEMA is that he is using a wrong template to prosper Zambia.
He is stuck with his private sector mentality.
Zambia is not a private entity.
Zambia is a public organisation.
Hakainde’s Achilles heel is his present and unmodified use of the private sector modus operandi for the pursuit of personal prosperity as the roadmap to Zambia’s prosperity.
This is where things now fall apart.
Hakainde HICHILEMA might have gotten away with dirty deals in the private sector but, his gargantuan ambition to be president of the Republic of Zambia, and eventual ascesion to that office, a public office, owned by citizens, might just be the very phenomenon/thing that becomes his undoing, the very development that exposes the man.
A DEALER, certainly.
A LEADER? I don’t know. Perhaps. But so far, NO.
You see, a leader of people, a country as in this treatise, thrives but sternly regulates the private sector for the benefit of his people.
The converse is untenable.
A win-win balancing act between the private and public sectors is the ultimate goal of all presidents of countries in the world.
When the private sector governs a president, lords over him, this leads to emasculating capture, a betray of the people. .
The private sector, when allowed to gallop towards a nirvana of profit, can be a very dangerous monster that can painfully devour the public.
The private sector puts profit before people.
A wise president then carefully leashes this vital component of any economy with appropriate policies for the benefit of the people, without harming it.
This isn’t the status quo in Zambia today.
Under Hakainde HICHILEMA, it is this converse which now obtains. Our Republican President seems encumbered by capital demons, caught up in a confusing web of power players.
The private sector has taken control, it s now regulating Zambia.
This is where the wheels of Zambia come off.
This is where the citizens crash.
This is where the carnage starts, and the suffering, and then some.
Greg MILLS, the author of the book ‘Expensive Poverty’, a man of many hats, is more powerful than our own Republican President His Excellency Mr Hakainde HICHILEMA.
To illustrate his power, Greg MILLS, as if overbearingly summoning a black ‘boy’ on a boer-owned farm in colonial , apartheid times, summoned our own president, the entire President of Zambia, to his private place to launch his book.
A private event.
And Hakainde HICHILEMA went, as if a loyal, powerless slave eager to please the beck and call of his master.
As a citizen, I felt ashamed.
And Hakainde HICHILEMA used our resources, public resources, to please this seeming master of his.
And as if all this was NOT enough, this summons of Greg MILLS’ caused our own troubled young man at foreign affairs, Stanley KAKUBO to lie to all of us his real masters that Hakainde HICHILEMA was on an official visit.
But then South African government put egg on Stanley’s face by saying that Hakainde HICHILEMA had come to South Africa on a private visit.
You see, now that he is a public servant, Hakainde’s deals will embaras him. These deals can no longer be hidden.
Hakainde can no longer hide;
Not even at Community House.
In the private sector, dealing, commonly dirty, is the order of the day.
On the other hand, in the public sector, this is not the case.
You see, through Marshal MUCHENDE, the Solicitor General, Hakainde HICHILEMA was caught soliciting. He cut a deal with Milingo LUNGU for the State to turn a blind eye to the criminal charges levelled against Milingo in exchange for Milingo’s resignation.
Then obfuscating, blowing smoke, Hakainde throws the DPP under the bus, and as if playing with idiotic minds, goes to town at a press conference telling us, his masters, the owners of Zambia, that he wasn’t involved.
And yet the buck stops with him.
The deal he gave the mines, which saw the stock value of,FQM rise, through Situmbeko MUSOKOTWANE’s tax policy concessions requires a forensic audit.
It reeks odd. Partly because of this policy shift, FQM is now ranked as the sixth leading producer of copper in the world.
When Paul KAGAME says it is only jokers who masquerade as African leaders who hang their citizens like this, he has a serious point we must all cheer.
By this ill-advised policy shift alone, Zambia will now lose billions of US dollars.
But what is odd is that the US 1.4 billion we are dying to have from the hegemonistic and imperialistic IMF is by far less than we could have made ourselves.
Deals at the Royal Zambezo Lodge.
Deals at the Brenthurst Trust.
Deals with Bailey at State House.
Deals with Vedantta.
Deals, deals, deals.
The list is tediously long.
The PF must be roundly commended by all patriotic Zambians for seizing ownership of both Konkola Copper Mines [KCM] and Mopani Copper Mines [MCM].
This is what is required of Zambia today. Forget the means [here cite the seizure of GAZPROM assets by Britain for guidance].
What is primary is OWNERSHIP. The method is secondary, that can be tidied up later, as we are now doing.
It is the OWNERSHIP of Zambia’s assets by its citizens through increased shareholding or absolute ownership which will recover our economy, lower the cost of living, prosper Zambians and end its abject poverty.
It is not what Hakainde is currently doing.
Hakainde is presently doing the opposite, increasing ownership by foreigners of our capital, our means of production.
Foreigners should only remain as equity partners.
Kwamana.
Hakainde HICHILEMA is now on the path to privatising Zambia, the whole country.
Keith MLEVU is watching all this with disgust and utter indignation.
When someone said that Hakainde would sell Zambia, Hakainde retorted by saying, how can I as if I own it?
Yes, this is exactly what you are now attempting to do, sir.
But, trust me, you will fail, because as you correctly observed in your retort, you do NOT OWN Zambia. Zambia is NOT your private property. The people will fight back, the citizens will NOT allow it.
Tell your business partners that vinthu vinachinja, Zambians are all now awake. And truly Zambia is NOT for sale.
Zambia needs a LEADER.
Zambia does not need a DEALER.
This then is Zambia’s conundrum today.
All this failure to keep promises, all this suffering that Zambians today are experiencing as a result of the skyrocketing cost of living is because we have a dealer as president.
Let us all pray that his insatiable appetite for deals and capital will soon be tampered with LOVE FOR PEOPLE, a genuine and honest concern for the many Zambians that live in abject poverty.
Hakainde HICHILEMA, regulate the private sector.
Do NOT allow the private sector to regulate you.
indeed poverty cannot be shared.
But we know that prosperity can be had through judicious means.
We say no to the impeding wholescale privatisation of Zambia.
Indeed, aluta continua!
Dr Canisius BANDA
Development Activist
