HH, TACKLE FUEL PRICES
…soon citizens will park vehicles, walk to work – Kabimba
By Kombe Mataka
ECONOMIC Front leader Wynter Kabimba says President Hakainde Hichilema should tackle the price of fuel as opposed to treating Zambians to boring issues of payment of retirees.
Kabimba said for Ukrainian Ambassador to South Africa, Mozambique and Botswana, Liubov Abravitova to appeal to the Zambian government to suspend its diplomatic ties with Russia she, “has jumped on the gullibility of the Zambian government”.
“We are in for a rough ride because of that vote [at the United Nations General Assembly against Russia],” he warned.
Speaking when he featured on 5FM Radio’s The Burning Issue programme on Tuesday, Kabimba warned that if not addressed the country will soon have citizen’s vehicles parked as they will no longer afford the commodity.
“If you remember, their campaign promise or explanation was that the reason why the fuel was expensive was because it had a lot of middlemen scamming the government. They said it was a scam between the government and middlemen yet these guys are supposed to be economists,” he said.
“I am sure there must have been a lecture one day at the University (of Zambia) which HH attended dealing with oil but they (UPND) offer a very simplistic explanation to such a fundamentally valuable issue. Now they have changed the story and even made it worse than PF by saying that now oil will be reviewed every month.”
Kabimba implored the UPND to understand dynamics involved in fuel pricing.
He challenged them to own up to reality instead of uttering economic jargon.
“…Because of the Russia-Ukraine conflict now the price of a barrel of oil has shot up from 90 dollars per barrel to 140 dollars as at yesterday (Monday) and nobody knows how long that conflict will take. It is at 140 dollars because the United States has had to offload 30 million barrels from its reserves to cushion that. It will be way above,” Kabimba explained. “In fact, it is expected to go up to 200 dollars a barrel. Don’t the UPND guys understand this? Don’t they watch TV to see where the world is going? This is not just about speaking nasal English; speaking English through your nose, this reality.”
He argued that no matter how late President Hichilema knocked off from work, Zambians still wanted solutions to the many problems in the country.
“It is not about the President knocking off at 17:00 [hours] and going to Community House. It’s not about locking up State House. It is about spending nights understanding where this world is and where it is going in the interest of the Zambian people. So, if the oil price keeps on escalating, we shall be walking to work,” Kabimba warned.
“We will be as good as being in an oil embargo. Why do you think Shell today is resisting the sanctions against Russia by the US against importing oil? Because they know the importance of oil. Why do you think Germany is being cautious about applying sanctions on Russia over oil? Because they understand the importance of oil and gas for their economy. And I want to hear HH address this on Friday (today) instead of boring us with how many retirees have been paid.”
Kabimba said the issue of retirees was important but that fuel was critical.
“We know (issue of retirees) that it won’t change the price of rice in China even if you paid all the retires. It won’t change the economy. There will be a bit of money in circulation, so what? There are fundamentals we have here which the UPND government must be dealing with and to do that they must spend sleepless nights,” he said.
“The options they are giving about 100 pupils a classroom and payment of retirees and that kind of thing is not what is going to move this country forward. The aspect of the oil is an important one. We need to understand the dynamics and that is why the way we voted at the UN General Assembly is important because there will be economic repercussions coming out of that vote.”
Kabimba said the UPND policy of reviewing oil prices monthly could be the cause of their downfall.
“It will not help. The truth of the matter is it will not help and that will be the downfall of UPND government which is founded on the lies they told during campaigns and the reality that they are facing today,” he added.
“If you understand international politics, just the elementary international politics and President HH says he has global connections; if he understood those global connections well and how this world is constructed, you can actually see that oil is an important driver of the economy. Look, we want to have leaders in Africa and Zambia in particular that spend sleepless nights understanding where this world is coming from, where it is, where it is going. There are people that sleep to dream and others that dream to change the world and we don’t have the crop of citizens that dream to change this world. We need to have a crop of citizens that dream to change this world. We don’t have them now. The crop we have is a crop of neo- liberal capitalist leaders that are more agents of the West than representatives of their people.”
Kabimba cited PF’s fake promise of cheapening the price of oil by constructing an oil pipeline between Zambia and Angola.
“We saw this with PF. PF had announced that they wanted to put an oil pipeline into Angola to Zambia through Malawi. The PF said it will bring oil from Angola in Zambia. Then you ask them, don’t you know that Angola imports its oil? The oil that Angola produces or drills is drilled as crude oil,” he explained.
“Then it is sent out to Europe through multinational companies such as Shell and BP and Mobil, and Angola imports that oil at ten times the price of their own oil. And so is the case with Nigeria. And here you have a whole government which does not understand that Angola suffers from the same shortages and pricing like Zambia. It does not produce any oil and they were talking about putting a pipeline and thought that Angola will make the price cheaper. A dream! But a dream founded on ignorance. This is the case with UPND.”
Kabimba warned that it was high time the UPND started aligning its policies with global developments.
“The importation of oil which they thought was very easy, Russia is the third largest exporter of oil after the US and Saudi Arabia. They have the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. Doesn’t HH understand that? And his team; you go and vote against Russians instead of being neutral or abstaining like South Africa and Botswana did and Zimbabwe!” he said.
“Let us understand geo-politics and let us understand politics at international level, not just in terms of making deals and connections, no. There are fundamentals here that will eventually affect the Zambian economy, oil is one of them. The US has had to send an envoy to Saudi Arabia to go and see if the Saudi government can increase production of oil but Saudi alone is not enough. They need Iran which is also one of the world’s producers of oil but Iran is in talks with the US to see how they resolve the Iran [nuclear] deal and sanctions on Iran. So, the Iran oil is not on the market yet. Russian oil will not be on the market with the conflict proceeding. Where are our colleagues in UPND…and they call themselves businessmen! We are in for a rough ride because of that vote.”
And Kabimba laughed off the move by Ukraine’s Ambassador to South Africa to engage Zambian journalists over that country’s conflict with Russia.
“We can’t even have an embassy here for Ukraine. Ukraine is the second country in terms of land mass in Europe. It is Russia, Ukraine and others and the Ambassador of Ukraine to South Africa had the cheek to hold a briefing with the Zambian journalists to break ties with Russia! To get what from Russia? Refugees who are running away from there,” asked Kabimba.
“Why didn’t she have a briefing with South Africans where she is resident? It is because she knows South Africa understands what it is doing. So, she has jumped on the gullibility of the Zambian government! All this just shows you…I don’t think this is a matter that even went to Cabinet. What I found interesting is, last week there was a photo which I saw in the print media of HH hosting lunch for some senior citizens, [Vernon Johnson Mwaanga] VJ was one of them. The other notable figure of interest to me was Mr Wilted Phiri, the former director of intelligence. If HH had met VJ before this vote was taken and asked him which way to go, I don’t think he would have advised him (HH) to vote the way they did because VJ was ambassador to Russia at the age of 21.”