JACK Kalala says since PF came to power in 2011 they have been peddling malicious aspersions that Hakainde Hichilema sold the mines and other state owned companies.
Kalala, former president Levy Mwanawasa’s special assistant for policy and project implementation and monitoring, said the PF maliciously allege that Hichilema greatly benefitted from the privatisation of state owned companies during the first 10 years of MMD era.
He said the allegation was a scheme intended to denigrate and demonise Hichilema in the eyes of the public so that he is considered as an evil person and who should not be considered for public office.
“In addition, they have labeled him to be tribal, satanic and belonging to the underworld movement of the freemasons without providing any proof to support their malignant claims. The truth is that HH is a bona fide Christian of the Adventist Church,” Kalala said.
He said it should be understood that privatisation was a Frederick Chiluba led MMD government programme that was intended to change the country’s economic system from a socialist command economy to a liberal market economy to better the economy and the living standard of the people.
Kalala noted apart from ending the endemic shortages of essential goods and improving the public transport sector, the programme lamentably failed in many ways as it did not achieve the intended economic development and prosperity for the nation but created more socio-economic problems.
He recalled that many companies closed leading to losses of jobs and increased unemployment in the country, a situation from which the country has not fully recovered to date.
Kalala said the cause of this dismal failure was due to inept, incompetent, corrupt and poor leadership because instead of providing leadership to develop the country for the benefit of the people, political leaders resorted to plundering national resources to enrich themselves at the expense of national development.
“As pointed out, the privatisation of state owned companies was a government programme that was backed by an Act of Parliament to effectively implement the process in a transparent manner. The Act provided for the establishment of the Zambia Privatisation Agency (ZPA) whose main function was to plan, manage, implement and control the privatisation of State owned enterprises in Zambia,” he said.
He further said being a government programme, it was the responsibility of those in government at the time to ensure its successful implementation.
Kalala said to implement the programme the lead institutions were the ZPA, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and the Ministry of Finance and the persons who were ministers of finance during the crucial period were Ronald Penza and Edith Nawakwi.
He said the minister of finance played a leading role in the privatisation process.
Kalala said among the key roles the minister played as provided for in the Act were to approve key stages of the privatisation, to recommend the value and sale of company to Cabinet, to manage the privatisation proceeds, recommend the sale price to Cabinet and to sign the sales agreement after approval by Cabinet.
“The Attorney General also scrutinised with an eagle’s eye any sale transaction before it was executed. Ms Edith Nawakwi practically superintended over the sale of companies that were sold during the time she served as minister of finance. If anything went wrong with any of the sales, she is the one to be held fully responsible and accountable. She should not run away from the responsibility by pointing fingers at people who were not mandated by the Act to sell State owned companies.”
Kalala further said to know the true value of the 270 companies earmarked for privatisation and draw contracts of sale, the government engaged private professional accounting companies and law firms, not individuals, to do the necessary work.
He recalled that among the many companies that were engaged to do the valuation of companies to be privatised was Coopers and Lybrand now Grand Thorton, a reputable international accounting firm, where Hichilema was an employee.
Kalala said the government did not contract the UPND leader as an individual but the company he worked for and that the money that was paid for the valuation work was paid to Coopers and Lybrand, not to Hichilema as an individual.
Kalala said it was therefore folly of the highest order and malicious wickedness to attribute the sale of the State owned companies to one individual who did not even work for government.
He lamented that it was regrettable that instead of being modest and remorseful on behalf of the government under which she served, Nawakwi should be speaking out with brazen audacity and impunity spilling out lies and claiming to be innocent of the criminal mismanagement of the privatisation process that led to closure of many companies that formed the economic base of the country and losses of people’s jobs and source of livelihoods.
Kalala said in all sincerity, Hichilema did not commit any wrongdoing, legally or morally and anyone accusing him of any wrongdoing was just being malicious and slanderous.
“The people who should be held responsible and accountable are those who served in the MMD government between 1991 and 2001. These are the people who made the decisions to privatise State owned companies. Some have since passed on while others are still alive. In addition, documents are there that were signed to sell the companies, minutes of Cabinet meetings are there and ZPA reports are there. These documents would tell the full story of what exactly happened,” he said.
He said Nawakwi’s narrative was stale and obsolete and that it was one of the malicious schemes initiated and promoted by the PF regime to tarnish Hichilema’s image and integrity, and to divert people’s attention from the many PF’s failures and crimes they have committed against the nation.
Kalala added that the PF regime also wants to divert people’s attention from the schemes they are doing at Electoral Commission of Zambia in preparation to rig the elections next year in their favour.
“What is the logic of directing attention to matters that happened three decades ago while failing to address current issues of rampant and grandiose corruption?” Kalala wondered.
He insisted that anyone who is interested in knowing what transpired during the privatisation of companies, records are there at Parliament and ZPA.
“Nowhere in these documents is HH mentioned to have misconducted himself as it is being alleged,” he said.
Kalala urged the PF regime to stop their ‘dirty’ game of victimising Hichilema, warning that they may trigger something that may go out of control.
“Instead, they should concentrate on preparing to hold transparent and fair elections next year to let people choose freely and in peace their next leaders,” said Kalala.