KALABA CALLS OUT GOVERNMENT ON ITS PLANS TO ENGANGE UK-BASED ‘SOLE TRADER’ TO PRODUCE 5000 MEGAWATTS
The UPND administration is banking its hopes on a newly registered and little-known United Kingdom based “sole trader” called Echo Eight Consulting Limited to produce 5000 megawatts of clean energy aimed at ending the debilitating challenge of loadshedding currently ravaging the country, Citizens First President Harry Kalaba, has charged.
According to Mr. Kalaba, Echo Eight which was incorporated in the United Kingdom under Company Number 14556474 on 23rd December, 2022, has a share capital of GBP100, which is (K3,744) equivalent as its registered capital.
Speaking to KBN TV in an exclusive interview, Mr. Kalaba wondered how the Zambian Government with all the resources at its disposal, could not carry out due diligence for them to land at Echo Eight with Mr. David Green as a sole director.
According to news reports, Energy Minister, Makozo Chikote, said he had invited UK-based Echo Eight investments limited to establish clean energy operations in Zambia, as part of the efforts to end load-shedding and achieve energy security by December 2025.
Mr. Chikote is quoted to have welcomed Echo Eight’s proposal to deploy up to 5,000 megawatts of renewable energy within six months of approvals and has stressed the urgent need for investors capable of delivering timely results toward Zambia’s long-term energy goal to generate 9,000 megawatts and become a regional power hub through new inter-connector projects.
However, President Kalala has rubbished Mr. Chikote’s announcement as cheap lies stressing that a sole trader like Echo Eight which has never published any audited accounts since its inception, lacks the requisite capacity and experience to handle such a huge and capital-intensive project within the given timeframe.
President Kalaba says, going by the rule of thumb, setting up of a 1-megawatt generation capacity requires circa USD1 million and if we expect Echo Eight to produce 5000 megawatts, the GBP100 capital worth little known UK firm, will have to mobilise USD5 Billion.
“The question Mr. Chikote should be answering is which financier would invest USD 5 billion in a company that has never published audited accounts since its inception in 2022.” Mr.Kalaba said.
He cautioned citizens to be alert and avoid a repeat of the Lusaka/Ndola duo carriage way scandal where local money from NAPSA is being used to finance the project while another foreign entity, is collecting toll fees to the detriment of the Zambian treasury.
Kalaba thrives on people’s suffering. So when there is any news about something that will reduce people’s suffering, he is not happy.
Most of the Company’s that are making headways and difference, world over are not just those of old NO! But new entratbs on the markert – there are also new ones that are coming on the markert with new ideas and technology. The same is for millionaires and billionaires. The owner of Facebook, talk of whatsap are young innovative millionaires now and are making influence world-wide in the area of their investment. When they started they were not known but now they are a brand to reckon with so is the case with;
Echo Eight which was incorporated in the United Kingdom according to your research, but unlike the company your then, party and now your associate; the PF; tgey brought a not known company of some three individuals from Sudan in the year think should be between 2017 – 2019 to register a company in Zambia at PACRA theafter were given KANSESELI GOLD mine in Mwinilunga Noth – Western Province to run as inverters. This is on record now compare your Sudan friends (issue) as Citizen First President, the former PF foreign Affairs Minister who resigned citing (because ) massive corruption, as said with and from your own mouth you said, “there was too much corruption in PF under President Lungu and you didn’t want to work with corrupt people like him/them, ” President Lungu; but today the person you condemned to be very corrupt and didn’t want to work with him, now is a darling. Yiu startrd with him and togetger you went to work with him in UKWA bag. The dropped and fallen Alliance to now collapsing TONSE ALLIANCE. Where is your credibility and morality. Do you still think you are
still worth being a leader worth your salt? Aikona Man you are a lost entity.
If what Kalaba is saying is true, then this smells of corruption. Echo Eight themselves do not produce anything. They are just “consultants”. These are the type of companies without any track record, and are used by African politicians to do whatever they want with tax payers money. Nothing good will come out of the shady association. Zambians are just being taken for another ride, while those in power get richer and richer.
Reject tribalism, corruption and oppression.
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