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.
Love Laura brilliant objective and intelligent. The powers that may as well take this advice given.
Laura is smart.
This is true the government needs a clean up.
Laura you are using the principle of mirage or diffraction. Which means you see water where there is none or you see light rays differently when the rays go from one medium to another eg from air into water. Simply put your analysis is meant to distort the understand of things you have no facts about. Look you make a lot of unresearched bias self promoting issues and what to look like you are central to all issues. We know you love writing but please research.
Ba Voice, stop playing mirrors and state in simple terms, where Laura is wrong. She is saying perception is everything. There is definitely something wrong with the fight against corruption and the institutions charged with the responsibility of conducting that fight are ineffective because they seem compromised.
So far, there have been no notable convictions in the courts of law and I would assume that this is the best yardstick for determining the success of the fight against corruption.
The only thing with Masebo is that she was deceived so much by lies peddled by professionals with little experience of the operations of ZAMMSA and used to react to those deceptions. She also seems to have involved herself too much in professional issues committing so much money on purchasing drugs without taking into account the capacity of the system. Unfortunately, Laura is herself taking those lies about stealing of drugs. Those are views of uninformed professionals which are feeding to authorities and they themselves not knowing the systems believe. Its so unfortunate that the whole nation is believing the lies about stealing of drugs. Ok, there mighty be a few very isolated cases of theft but I believe these are insignificant and an I believe an audit would vindicate what I am saying. Don’t listen to UKA. UKA is a bunch of ignorant people that has potential to mislead the country with their distorted views. The President needs to be sober to separate truth from lies. On ACC and other law enforcement, I tend to cautiously agree though Mr Mwenye’s Board with oversight powers over ACC should have brought order there. They even have powers to review all cases and if a Director does not want to corporate recommend his removal. I personally highly respect Mr Mwenye and I think returning him to the Board wouldn’t be a bad idea Afterall since he has now learnt his mistake, especially that he wanted to save Zambia from the Lungu nightmare when he supported Guy Scot and he had almost succeeded had it not been for those foolish commanders who intimidated Guy scot.
The fact is, if Mr. Lungu is given another chance, he will do worse things than what we witnessed under his despotic, kleptomaniac and lawless rule.
After he defrauded a widow of K36000 (?), we gave him another chance hoping he had reformed and made him President. He ended up raiding the national treasury with his “uubomba mwibala alya mwibala” philosophy, effectively making corruption and thieving a defacto policy of the PF party and government.
I have no doubt that giving him a third chance would be a grave mistake.
Unless we start agreeing that what was black in UNIP, MMD, PF is still black in UPND. Not everyone is right in UPND, we should accept they are not saints or angels. ACC was established under KK, meaning it was important to curb and prevent corruption in any form at that time. This didn’t indicate that KK was corrupt NO. But he knew he was dealing with people who has different interests at different levels of leadership.
The common thing ECL used to tell us bring me evidence, when someone talked about corruption in his government. Especially real evidence comes from inside who was that civil servant had the courage to submit proof evidence against their political leaders.
Kaizer Zulu became a small president of Zambia why? He was given big money by corrupt business people to facilitate meetings with ECL as president for presidential favours.
Presidential Advisors carry a strong status in society who can either make a president or bring down a president. They may not opely misbehaviour like Kaizer but that does not mean they may not be corrupt
No matter what excuses or protection we can give on these people around the President today, the President HH is the one painted either black or white to what is happening with people around him. Who doubts the behaviour of Kaizer Zulu didn’t have a negative impact on Lungu’s reign. It’s time for the president to act decisively. He needs better people around him than some of the people he is with.
At the end of the today it is his choice the people he want to work with.
Unless we start agreeing that what was black in UNIP, MMD, PF is still black in UPND. Not everyone is right in UPND, we should accept they are not saints or angels. ACC was established under KK, meaning it was important to curb and prevent corruption in any form at that time. This didn’t indicate that KK was corrupt NO. But he knew he was dealing with people who has different interests at different levels of leadership.
The common thing ECL used to tell us bring me evidence, when someone talked about corruption in his government. Especially real evidence comes from inside who was that civil servant had the courage to submit proof evidence against their political leaders.
Kaizer Zulu became a small president of Zambia why? He was given big money by corrupt business people to facilitate meetings with ECL as president for presidential favours.
Presidential Advisors carry a strong status in society who can either make a president or bring down a president. They may not opely misbehaviour like Kaizer but that does not mean they may not be corrupt
No matter what excuses or protection we can give on these people around the President today, the President HH is the one painted either black or white to what is happening with people around him. Who doubts the behaviour of Kaizer Zulu didn’t have a negative impact on Lungu’s reign. It’s time for the president to act decisively. He needs better people around him than some of the people he is with.
At the end of the today it is his choice the people he want to work with.
For the Chairman of ACC and Director General of ACC to reach that level of misunderstanding it speak volumes 1year plus not moving together.
Our intelligence advised President Sata not to appoint him because he runs gangs. And President Sata did not listen because of being a nephew.
The Ministry of health has always been a challenging one in Zambia over several years. It is a huge and critical Ministry which touches every corner of the country. The main issue is the huge budgetary sums of money by Donor support and the stinginess of people in procurement. I think the ministry requires 2 Ministers one for administration and the other for operations to improve efficiency. supervision and Operations. This should also include implement a data and procurement system. Most of these scandals are because of using manual paper procurement systems. Workers then should given different levels of access and no one should have access to over ride the system. It will be costly, all the scavenging will cease.