HH SHOULD LEAD BY EXAMPLE BY REDUCING HIS TRIPS – MUNDUBILE
….Says the President has travelled so many times out of the country and the Zambians can’t see any fruit from those travels
Lusaka – Tuesday, 2 May 2023
PF presidential aspirant Brian Mundubile says President Hakainde Hichilema should lead by example by reducing his foreign trips so that his Ministers can follow suit.
During the Presidential Delivery Unit workshop on Thursday, President Hichilema lamented that some ministers and permanent secretaries were perpetually traveling when they had not even achieved their deliverables.
The President further directed the sale of all brand new VX V8 motor vehicles bought after UPND formed government.
But in an interview, Mundubile said President Hichilema had made a number of trips which had not benefited the Zambians.
“So it is like father and son, so he must lead by example. The President has travelled so many times out of the country and the Zambians can’t see any fruit from those travels. So for that instruction to be carried and followed by his Ministers, the President himself must reduce on the trips.
Because his Ministers now feel you can travel even if there is nothing that you are going to do because they have seen the principal traveling and there is no result coming. So it is more about him stopping to travel then he can properly direct his Ministers not to also travel especially where there is no delivery,” he said.
He wondered why the President ordered the sale of VX V8 motor vehicles when he earlier promised that no such vehicles would be bought in his government.
“The issues of VXs, it was a campaign promise that there will be no VXs. Then the question is how did the buying of VXs by his government [happen] against his own pronouncement? How did that escape his watchful eye? Who is in charge of this government? Why is it [that] the government officials or Ministers are not following what he is saying? So that is a constructive admission by the President that he is not totally in charge of government. Because if he said there would not be VXs and then suddenly he is saying ‘we are selling the VXs that were bought’, it meant that they are not in charge,” Mundubile said.
“In the first place, there should not have been VXs because he said there should be no VXs. Now he is talking about selling the VXs that were bought when they should not have been bought in the first place.
Those vehicles should not have been bought in the first place. So for us, it is a serious concern, how many other wrongs are happening in this government without the President knowing? Because he is clearly giving us a helpless position that he didn’t want VXs to be bought, they have been bought. He didn’t want Ministers to travel, they are traveling, so who is in charge of government is the question’’.
Mundubile said the PF had been vindicated that UPND had failed to deliver services to the people.
“The starting point for me and it’s good that the President has finally admitted that there has been no service delivery from the time they took over government.
It is something that we have repeatedly spoken to but thank God we are now being vindicated. When we spoke about the happenings in the Ministry of Agriculture, the distribution of inputs, the export of maize and so on, our friends turned a deaf ear to our calls and advice. So finally the President has admitted that there is nothing going on in his government. What needs to be done, we have always advised, is that government should have clear policy direction in each sector. Once that is so then the other arguments fall off,” HE said.
Mundubile said President Hichilema should begin to introspect about his way of governance.
“If a minister is traveling because he has to deliver on their promises and in order to deliver it requires him to travel, then there is no problem. It becomes a problem, like the President is admitting, in that if ministers are traveling without any results. So the buck stops at him. He must begin to introspect, is he probably directing his government? Is the President probably directing his ministers? Are the ministers carrying out that vision? Are they delivering to the poor people of Zambia through those travels? So it is not enough to just make blanket statements, there must be a clear path upon which the government wants to deliver,” said Mundubile.
“Trips and whatever else must be aligned to that delivery, in the absence of which we have a problem. So to sum it up, the President has admitted that his government is not delivering. The next question is why? That question can only be answered by him. Is he properly directing his ministers in a direction that they can deliver to the expectations of the Zambian people?”
(Credit: News Diggers)