LUSAKA AU SUMMIT ROLL CALL. Who was AWOL?
By Miles B. Sampa, MP
The just ended Lusaka summit had unprecedented low turnout both at lower ranking end and at Presidentual level. There was many theories but post Pandemic stigma on physical meetings cannot be ignored. It was also a mid term evaluations gathering and historically it does not receive much attention as does the January main summit. Only Presidents that are in Committee to produce reports tend to attend the mid year summit.
Presidents of neighboring countries are however expected to attend summits held in their region as a matter of soliderity to the hosting nation. I could only note the presence of Congo DR President Ettiene Chisekedi from the region.
My surprise absentee ‘landlords’ were Malawi and South Africa’s Lazarus Chakwera and Cyril Ramaposa respectively. I was not so surprised Zimbabwe’s 🇿🇼 Emmerson Mnagagwa did not make it but that is a topic for another day.
Achimwene (uncle) President Chakwera should have come by all means necessary but guess he only enjoys trips out of Africa to the USA and Europe where he can espouse his chizungu (accent) better.
As for Sir Ramaposa (CR) who was even on the Lusaka summit agenda to give a report on Pandemic progress in Africa, he may have hard a ka small ‘matter of urgent public importance’ to deal with back home. There are some public calls for the ANC to recall him following his pala pala farm scandle. About $8M cash was found hidden inside a sofa at his farm cottage. A brother to the maid ‘robbed’ the cottage and ‘accidentally’ took off with both the sofa and contents. Lol.
He was arrested in Namibia, imprisoned in SA and then paid some $50,000 or so never to tell the story.
This happened about 3 years ago and only leaked recently. The SA public is questioning President Ramaposa on his source of the huge US $ 8M cash to which he said he sold his animals (Cows and Buffaloes). Lol
So we can forgive CR for not attending our Lusaka Summit. We must actually empathize with his predicament as he could be the next Boris Johnson (famous BoJo😊) at the rate pressure is mounting on him.
Is Sir CR about to follow his predecessor Jacob Zuma who was also recalled by the ANC for condoning the state capturers (The Guptas)? Only time will tell.
On the local front we had winners and losers to the event. Those whose vehicles got hired (have a story to tell here) won some good money while those that never managed to get clients were left Ku wire. Hotels and Lodges that got clients made some big money. Pamodzi , Radisson, and Sarova hotel were fully booked entire summit period. Those that for some reason did not get guests, were also ‘hanged’ business-wise.
Restaurants also made money and personally took a few guest to taste our Zambian cuisine. Kumushi in the show grounds and one along Kwacha road were some of my Matebeto restaurants winners out of the summit. Took my guests there for meals and yes they paid in Dollars.
The Kwacha was also amongst winners and should pick up some strength once all Dollar payments from the summit are converted into the local currency.
Otherwise well done Zambia for successfully hosting the AU summit. It was ‘incident’ free 😊.
Together We Can
MBS20.07.2022