HH EXPANDING BUSINESS EMPIRE
…may turn out to be most corrupt President – M’membe
By Fanny Kalonda
SOCIALIST Party leader Fred M’membe has charged that President Hakainde Hichilema’s businesses are doing business with the government he controls and directs.
He says Hichilema may turn out to be the most corrupt President of the country.
In a statement yesterday, Dr M’membe said President Hichilema was following footsteps of Cecil Rhodes and Oppenheimer in using his political position of President of Zambia to expand and consolidate his business empire.
He said the key leadership of the new dawn government is also associated with companies getting government tenders to supply fertilisers.
“Oppenheimer used his position as mayor and member of parliament to expand and consolidate his business empire. He was involved in a number of controversies, including price fixing, antitrust behaviour, and an allegation of not releasing industrial diamonds for the United States war effort during World War II. Mr Hichilema, in a new time and in a new way, is following the footsteps of Rhodes and Oppenheimer in using his political position of President of the Republic of Zambia to expand and consolidate his business empire,” Dr M’membe said. “But we all know that using political office to advance personal or associates’ business interests amounts to grand corruption. Following this path of businessman/politician, Mr Hichilema may turn out to be the most corrupt President of our country. His admiration for Rhodes and the Oppenheimers has inspired him to follow their corrupt path of combining business with political leadership at the highest possible levels.”
He said whereas Rhodes and the Oppenheimers got away with it, President Hichilema and his league “will find it very difficult to get away with it no matter what schemes of concealment of business interests they deploy”.
“In 1929 Oppenheimer formed the Rhodesian Anglo American Corporation to exploit the rich copper deposits in Northern Rhodesia. His last project was the pioneering of new goldfields in the Orange Free State, South Africa. Oppenheimer served as mayor of Kimberley from 1912 to 1915 and was a member of the Union of South Africa Parliament from 1924 to 1938. It’s not a secret that Mr Hichilema’s businesses, like those of Rhodes and Oppenheimer, are doing business with the government he controls and directs. This is a very primitive, crude form of inside dealings,” Dr M’membe said. “Mr Hichilema is without shame or restraint directing government business to businesses he is associated with or he is in one way or the other getting a benefit from. But whereas Rhodes and the Oppenheimers got away with it, Mr Hichilema and his league will find it very difficult to get away with it no matter what schemes of concealment of business interests they deploy.”
He noted that the Socialist Party has consistently and repeatedly talked about President Hichilema as a continuation of the businessmen and politicians who colonised and exploited people for decades.
“Today, civil servants are in a very serious and painful debt trap that is benefiting their political leaders who are connected to Bayport and other companies that are mercilessly exploiting them. And because of this, attempts at debt swap to bail out civil servants have been frustrated or reversed. Today, civil servants are forced into medical insurance schemes with Madison whose books they are acquiring. They are really following in the footsteps of Rhodes and Oppenheimer who governed and did business with the governments they controlled and directed. Cecil John Rhodes was a British mining magnate and politician in southern Africa who served as prime pinister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. Like Mr Hichilema who is the 7th President of the Republic of Zambia, Rhodes was the 7th prime minister of the Cape Colony and was in office from July 17, 1890 – January 12, 1896,” said Dr M’membe. “Rhodes entered the Cape Parliament at the age of 27 in 1881, and in 1890, he became prime minister. During his time as prime minister, Rhodes used his political power to expropriate land from black Africans through the Glen Grey Act, while also tripling the wealth requirement for voting under the Franchise and Ballot Act, effectively barring black people from taking part in elections. After overseeing the formation of Rhodesia during the early 1890s, he was forced to resign in 1896 after the disastrous Jameson Raid, an unauthorised attack on Paul Kruger’s South African Republic (or Transvaal). Kruger was Rhodes’ main business competitor. Rhodes’s career never recovered; his heart was weak and after years of poor health he died in 1902. He was buried in what is now Zimbabwe. His grave has been a controversial site. Rhodes’ racial views are a subject of scrutiny and debate. He believed the natives of the Cape to have existed in a state of barbarism…”