By: Anthony Bwalya – UPND Member
There are only THREE words that perfectly describes the Patriotic Front (PF) reign in office since 2011: MANIPULATION, DECEPTION, CORRUPTION.
Zambians must also be reminded, that right now, the PF regime has embarked on a dirty scheme of leveraging international investment banking laundering platforms, to divert our $11.6 billion external debt into the hands of vultures in exchange for millions of US dollars in commission.
What the Zambian public do not realize is that the rapid, illegal accumulation of public debt by the PF regime, in the name of infrastructure development, was a long-standing calculated move to defraud the Zambian treasury and allow our country and our people to be held at ransom by international lending vulchers, all in exchange for quick cuts in commission.
This is how the PF regime sought to back Zambians into an impossible public debt position, entrench poverty and destitution, and then continue to hold themselves out as the Messiahs of a highly impoverished country whose most vulnerable now exist merely on handouts from corrupt, thieving government politicians of the ruling regime.
It is worth mentioning, that the regime has now effectively cut all productive debt restructuring engagement ties with our multilateral partners such as the IMF, a path that demanded fiscal discipline and sobriety, and instead opted for an international investment banking route which puts the interests of vulchers ahead of our country, while ensuring that Zambian politicians within the PF regime get paid handsomely for accepting to launder the lives of Zambians!!!!!
We cannot be stupid enough, to forget that anything and everything that the PF regime has done, has always been aimed at consolidating the power and influence of the Patriotic Front and it’s high ranking members while weakening the underlying fabric of our public institutions.
Today, our public institutions are struggling to pay our hardworking civil servants and yet PF officials, government Ministers can afford to make “donations” in their millions. These individuals are no longer repentant about flaunting their unexplained wealth – they wear the most expensive suits, shoes, cologne; drive the most expensive vehicles, build the biggest mansions. They do all this while our mothers give birth on filth hospital floors, while hardworking Zambians die without ever receiving their pension benefits, while council workers go unpaid for months, as well as while students meal allowances are withdrawn.
These are the same people who have gone after our protected forests such as Forest Reserve #27 and started building mansions against the requirements of the Environmental Protection Act. These are the same people who confiscated thousands of tonnes of Mukula trees from legitimate permit holders, exported the logs and shared the proceeds among themselves. In aggregate, the regime has failed to account for over $1.5bn in Mukula revenue since 2012!!
And do Zambians want to know why the PF regime has spent close to $7bn “investing” in hydroelectric projects while foolishly making noise about climate change? Corruption and kickbacks. This regime could have installed 347MW of solar power in each one of our 10 provinces with this kind of money, but instead they decided to launder our public resources by tieing our nation to foreign debt that delivered maximum kickbacks to members of the regime while delivering little economic freedoms for Zambians.
If Zambians think all our sufferings have happened by accident then we never learn and we probably do not deserve this country.
The PF regime has been waging war against this country since 2011 and they will not stop.
For the PF, their continued stay in office is no longer about service; it is about power and control.
In 2021, Zambians will have a choice: either we take our country back or we must willingly accept to be slaves and live a life of slavery in our own, independent country…