HH IS NOT SINCERE

…he can dupe others not us – Kalaba

By Fanny Kalonda

DP president Harry Kalaba says the country should be worried because it has a President whose agenda is coming from outside the country.

He says President Hakainde Hichilema should come out and state his agenda.
“He is busy talking to the Anglo-American, Oppenheimer, because they are the ones that procured his presidency and they funded his presidency,” Kalaba said when he featured on Kapiri Mposhi’s KBC Radio on Sunday. “…so we know the relationship that is there. You can dupe others and not us. But the truth is that the President is not being sincere with the Zambian people. He has done it too early. He has shown his true colours too early and that is sad.”


Kalaba wondered why Anglo-American returned to the country just after President Hichilema became the Head of State.
“You should be worried not just me as former foreign affairs minister but the country should be worried. You have a President whose agenda is not with him. He’s agenda is coming from outside. The fact that the President dances when he hears an invitation coming from the Oppenheimer Foundation or group should make you very worried. Why should the President go for a book launch for Oppenheimer…in South Africa? He left whatever he was doing here and went for a book launch in South Africa. You have been doing here, choirs sing here in Kapiri, a lot of choir people are doing album launches, and they write to the President. The President has refused to come to Kapiri for an album launch where they just voted for him…You gave him so many votes but he doesn’t care about Kapiri Mposhi,” he said. “The President’s heart is to go to Oppenheimer. Even when he went to Cape Town [for the Africa Mining Indaba], we saw that he reached earlier than the President of that country [Cyril Ramaphoas]. He was not even in the opening session but our President was already there. So it is worrying us. The president needs to tell us the agenda. What is he talking with Oppenheimer? What is his relationship with [former Nigerian president Olusegun] Obasanjo? Why is it that when he has come Anglo-American has also back into Zambia?”
Kalaba said President Hichilema is not being sincere with Zambians.
He noted that President Hichilema has started showing his true colours early.


“I mean, has the President gone ahead to privatise our country. Is that what is happening? Because honestly what we are seeing now is that this country is now going for the rich, by the rich and the President doesn’t even care about the poor people in this country. He is interested, he is busy talking to the Anglo American, Oppenheimer because they are the ones that procured his presidency and they funded his presidency. He has to show gratitude. Me, I thought that he would show gratitude to Zambians who voted for him overwhelmingly and removed the PF and put him,” Kalaba said. “But I think that is not happening. I think that is sad. We would want the President to be very categorical and you are the journalists, you should be able to ask him when you find him at the airport when he is coming back from the Oppenheimer Foundation. Ask him, ‘where you are coming from, why have you liked going there all the time?’ You just became President and one of the guest speakers we had was Obasanjo. How did he find himself here? We know him and Oppenheimer, he sits on that board of Brenthurst. So we know the relationship that is there. You can dupe others and not us. But the truth is that the President is not being sincere with the Zambian people. He has done it too early. He has shown his true colours too early and that is sad.”
And Kalaba challenged the UPND government to publish the memorandum of agreement between Zambia and AFRICOM.


“I met the lady in charge of politics at the American Embassy on the European Union day. And I did bring this to her attention that for us, we have written a letter to them. We have tried to engage the American using quiet diplomacy that is why you have not heard Harry Kalaba or any of my colleagues talking about AFRICOM so much. It is because we have written to them. AFRICOM is a very serious thing and so just talking and ending it might not be there. So we had to write to them to enquire further. They promised to get back to us. We would want for them to get back to us,” said Kalaba. “We are talking to them. Why did you not publish the memorandum of understanding of AFRICOM and the Zambian government? And according to the Americans, they do not have a problem with it and they said ‘it is not ours, our job, to release that document. I think the Zambian government should be the ones because they are the ones who deal directly with you the public’. So we are expecting the chief government spokesperson, again you are the members of the press who should speak to Madam Chushi Kasanda to give us the MoU between the Zambian government and AFRICOM. My worry is, normally if you have an embassy in a country, the way the American Embassy is here in Zambia, there should be no need of a memorandum of understanding because the Embassy itself has already done that. We did that MoU with America in 1964 when we got our independence. If something has changed, then there will be an MoU. So we want to see what addition has been done. Is it a base, is it a desk? Are they bringing a full combat team here? Or is it just a desk for them to coordinate their security issues within the framework of Zambia as a country? Those are the issues we need to understand and they can only be understood if we had sight of the MoU.”

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