LAURA MITI SPITS AGAIN
She writes…
Yesterday, I had a chat with a friend who is a deep PFer. We agree on a lot about what ails this country, but, as you can imagine, our views are dimetrically opposed on who is responsible for what, and who can, and should have the right to, lead us out of it.
Our intriguing conversations usually crumble on the EL question. My mind spins that one so intelligent, informed and all round analytical would be so insistent that EL made mistakes, but was not so bad a President. That, given another chance, he would do well for this country.
That was the trajectory he was on, again, yesterday.
Of course, I disagreed. Mr PF did, however, make a point that I found instructive.
It was that, like President Lungu seemed to find it impossible to deal with cadre anarchy, which was one of the biggest citizen unhappinesses under his presidency, President Hichilema is refusing to address a huge cancer around him.
The point was advanced, that I could not dispute, that President H, seems, by degrees, reluctant, scared or unable to get rid of some Ministers and other actors, who are nothing but trouble.
Thinking about it on my own later, I concluded that, yes, President Hichilema is carrying with him some people who he probably, erroneously, thinks are politcally central to his survival in office.
Just like ELwas convinced that, if he touched cadres, he would be dismantling a, negative and destructive, yes, but necessary-to-keep-him-in-office force, HH is making political expedient decisions about who he keeps in jobs.
Take his recent decision to transfer, rather than fire, Minister Sylvia Masebo, under whom troubling levels of alleged corruption in medical supplies took place.
She is moved to Lands, another Ministry that is a magnet for corruption.
What is the thinking behind keeping Ms Masebo, if it’s not that the President finds her politically untouchable?
By the way, this is not to say Ms Masebo is corrupt. It is about perception, which, most will know can be more destructive than fact. What is not in dispute is that on the performance front, Ministry of Health hs been a mess recently. No medicines in hospitals, medicine which is given to us for free by donors, then systemayically stolen😢.
There are other people even closer to the President, than even Ministers, about whom hairy stuff has been said, for years.
I keep wondering, does the President not hear the rumours flying around about the filth some of his own advisors are involved in?
Now, again, I have no way of knowing if what people are routinely accused of is true. I just know that you can’t have people believed to be enriching themselves, the way some presidential advisors are said to be, so close to the presidency.
In his position, the President can easily carry out a lifestyle audit for everyone close to him. He does mot need to wonder what is true.
But like my PF mate said – when Presidents are in office, they choose who to listen to, and many times hear only from people in a self-preserving bubble that tell him – without us you are nothing.
How a president who won by a million votes can be so threatened, I don’t know, though.
All I do know is that this government needs a major clean up.
SPITS AGAIN
She writes…
Yesterday, I had a chat with a friend who is a deep PFer. We agree on a lot about what ails this country, but, as you can imagine, our views are dimetrically opposed on who is responsible for what, and who can, and should have the right to, lead us out of it.
Our intriguing conversations usually crumble on the EL question. My mind spins that one so intelligent, informed and all round analytical would be so insistent that EL made mistakes, but was not so bad a President. That, given another chance, he would do well for this country.
That was the trajectory he was on, again, yesterday.
Of course, I disagreed. Mr PF did, however, make a point that I found instructive.
It was that, like President Lungu seemed to find it impossible to deal with cadre anarchy, which was one of the biggest citizen unhappinesses under his presidency, President Hichilema is refusing to address a huge cancer around him.
The point was advanced, that I could not dispute, that President H, seems, by degrees, reluctant, scared or unable to get rid of some Ministers and other actors, who are nothing but trouble.
Thinking about it on my own later, I concluded that, yes, President Hichilema is carrying with him some people who he probably, erroneously, thinks are politcally central to his survival in office.
Just like ELwas convinced that, if he touched cadres, he would be dismantling a, negative and destructive, yes, but necessary-to-keep-him-in-office force, HH is making political expedient decisions about who he keeps in jobs.
Take his recent decision to transfer, rather than fire, Minister Sylvia Masebo, under whom troubling levels of alleged corruption in medical supplies took place.
She is moved to Lands, another Ministry that is a magnet for corruption.
What is the thinking behind keeping Ms Masebo, if it’s not that the President finds her politically untouchable?
By the way, this is not to say Ms Masebo is corrupt. It is about perception, which, most will know can be more destructive than fact. What is not in dispute is that on the performance front, Ministry of Health hs been a mess recently. No medicines in hospitals, medicine which is given to us for free by donors, then systemayically stolen😢.
There are other people even closer to the President, than even Ministers, about whom hairy stuff has been said, for years.
I keep wondering, does the President not hear the rumours flying around about the filth some of his own advisors are involved in?
Now, again, I have no way of knowing if what people are routinely accused of is true. I just know that you can’t have people believed to be enriching themselves, the way some presidential advisors are said to be, so close to the presidency.
In his position, the President can easily carry out a lifestyle audit for everyone close to him. He does mot need to wonder what is true.
But like my PF mate said – when Presidents are in office, they choose who to listen to, and many times hear only from people in a self-preserving bubble that tell him – without us you are nothing.
How a president who won by a million votes can be so threatened, I don’t know, though.
All I do know is that this government needs a major clean up.