HH is not a leader but a businessman – Kalaba
By Fanny Kalonda
CITIZENS First president Harry Kalaba says the country does not have leaders but proper businessmen who want to squeeze money out of the positions they have.
“I think Zambians are slowly losing confidence in politicians. The other day someone was telling me, ‘politicians are the same’. And then I told them no they are not the same. The fact that one politician that you would have believed in so much, put a lot of confidence in and fails, even when we told you someone cannot do it you went ahead and had confidence in that particular person… When that politician fails, they begin thinking that politicians… the decision that they made has been made and therefore because that person has not reached their threshold [now] every other leader will not perform because that other one has failed? That’s not it,” Kalaba said, when he featured on Prime TV’s Oxygen of Democracy on Monday. “A leader must feel an urge for the people. Right now what we have are not leaders. What we have are proper businessmen who want to make and squeeze a bit of money out of the positions that they have.”
He said President Hichilema is a businessman “masquerading as a leader”.
“I am referring to President Hakainde Hichilema and his team. President Hakainde Hichilema is not a leader, he is a businessman. He is a businessman that has been masquerading as a leader and I say this with a lot of truthfulness. Look, today, as you and I are speaking State House has been captured. Why? Because of business interests,” Kalaba charged. “What we have are not people who are making decisions. They are selling decisions and as a result of that people begin to lose confidence in politicians. So yes we have come on a different pedestal. We have come on a platform to inject confidence back in our politics that these politics can be done differently. We don’t have to be violent in order to make our point across the aisle. We have to be issue based, we have to talk to issues that look, Zambia is the only thing that we have.”
He said today “we have many people dying of illnesses that they should have never died of in the first place”.
“Why? Because of recklessness from those that we have given the leadership mandate. Today we have our farmers struggling with the fertiliser. Why? Because the people that you gave the leadership have gone in the business-like manner. You can’t run a government like that,” Kalaba said.
He said if the President needs to back whoever helped him, he should not use Zambians.
Kalaba charged that the country’s sovereignty has been hijacked and it is in a very bad position.
“Here is a reminder to him. The President must know if he has to pay back wherever he is paying back, whoever helped him, he should not use us,” he said. “Today the Oppenheimers from South Africa have a desk in State House and they are making decisions. Look, when you talk about there being officers already under the auspices of the Brenthurst Foundation which is under Oppenheimer, they have a desk in State House. We have people employed in State House being paid by them. They are in State House. Their interest is that they have found a person that they can easily manipulate and that’s where the problem is,” said Kalaba. “Our sovereignty has been hijacked as you and I are speaking here. We are in a very bad position. And I speak this even as a [former] foreign affairs minister. I am very sensitive to who leaders especially those in State House are paying allegiances to. Clearly our President has been hijacked. These are not politics. These are very serious issues that we are raising. These are serious issues that need reflection by all Zambians. We are saying why is there too much proximity for our President with the Oppenheimers? Go to LinkedIn, you will find that the Tony Blair Foundation is advertising for jobs and in there, they keep on referring to our President – ‘after we have concluded with the President of Zambia, Mr Hakainde Hichilema…’ Those things should be able to tell you that our President, the President that we have currently, is paying more allegiance to what outsiders are telling him than what Zambians are saying. That is why even as we speak as Zambians, he will brush it off…”