By Fanny Kalonda
FDD president Edith Nawakwi has warned the UPND that the incarceration of Mumbi Phiri is reverberating in Washington and it will not be taken off the fire.
She says incarceration of citizens will affect the country’s access to the IMF bailout package as funders look at governance more than the economic system of a country.
Nawakwi also charges that Drug Enforcement Commission director general Mary Chirwa has been directed to go after former president Edgar Lungu through his wife Esther.
She argues that Chirwa would not have the audacity to “enter the bedroom of a former head of state on her own”.
“And everybody knows there are no two ways about it. Everybody knows she can’t have that audacity to do that. But my advice to Mr Hakainde, or the President, is that these people are setting up a wrong legacy for him. She’s (Esther Lungu) is not before the judiciary. She’s just before a click of young people who don’t understand the political economy of our country. First let me say this is an embarrassment to this nation. We are a laughingstock. And if they currently don’t stop, this rubbish is going to follow him. Because if today it is Esther Lungu, tomorrow it will be Mutinta [Hichilema]. I’m telling you this because until someone has to be born in this country to stop this rubbish of every leader of our nation being sent to the sewage pipe…That’s what is happening,” she said. “Honestly, what is the issue here is not even about Esther Lungu. They’re just trying to get to president Edgar through the back door. Not even the back door because what is it that the first lady would know that the former president didn’t know? I think that this is a clear cut message. And it’s out in the open what they’ve told these young people – go for the former first Lady. There’s no way Mary who is mature, there is no way and she could have the audacity to go and enter the bedroom of former president. She has been sent. Because they are young, they are naïve. They can’t see the sensitivities and they do what they are doing. But at the end of it, you can’t face this.”
Nawakwi said Chirwa and her position are diametrically opposed.
“She doesn’t have what that office requires. Someone who is mature, who has gone through either the judiciary or the politics. But not just someone from school because they have put you out to…and tomorrow you are this…that’s why she plays much more to the gallery than to her job. And it’s a pity, I mean, I’m a supporter of affirmative action on women. But let us not be embarrassed as women because there are wrong women in wrong places,” she said when she featured on Camnet TV’s National Matters programme on Monday evening.
And Nawakwi said what is happening to Mumbi is as a result of President Hichilema wanting to be vengeful because she was very vocal against him in opposition.
When asked about the Hatembo family, Nawakwi said the UPND should not poke her as she may reveal things they may not want to hear.
“When UPND keep poking me, they may end up hearing things they do not want to hear, she warned. “…know, I mean, this is UPND. This is their baby (Hatembo issue). And I don’t know if they want to continue to do that. Because everybody on the other side of the Hatembo has got a government job. I am the only one that didn’t need a government job. That is the answer I can give to them. And the Hatembos themselves, they are wallowing in poverty in the village.”
Nawakwi said UPND members need to be put in a room and briefed that “this matter is better left in abeyance”.
“That’s all I can say. Otherwise, I came here to discuss agriculture policy. You may have to create another platform. …you will need to get a response from the people who have got jobs and the people who have been compensated despite the nolle [prosequi]. So this will eventually derail us from the agriculture,” she said. “I am not leaving it to die. Look at my sister Mumbi Phiri, President Hichilema was incarcerated alright. Does he want to go down in history as a person who is vengeful? Because if you look at Mumbi Phiri, Mumbi Phiri was very vocal against Hakainde Hichilema. So whatever is happening to her people are recalling that this is not even the judiciary, this is the President himself revenging. You see that! So whatever is happening in the judiciary must have the blessing of the people in power. Because how can you, and these issues are very, very important. I thank you for raising this issue.”
Nawakwi said the UPND should be honest to access the IMF bailout package adding that governance issues rank higher than economic issues of a country.
“When I was minister of finance, I went to the Paris Club. But before then, I went to sensitise the creditors. And the creditor nations the issues they raised were two. One economic issues. They said where are the economic issues? You are almost reaching there. These dots we can ignore. But on the governance issues they raised the issue of the incarceration of, my late brother, Dean Mung’omba. He was incarcerated and that was one issue that delayed disbursement for Zambia for two years. I can assure you, the incarceration of Mumbi Phiri is reverberating in Washington. It will not be taken off the fire. It is seen as a governance issue. And how did we get around it? I had to admit that my late brother was incarcerated. But I also told them that they got to know about late Dean Mung’omba’s incarceration because he was a high profile person. I told them that what happens to a young child who is caught pickpocketing and will never hear the headlines of newspapers, you’ll never get to know them. I told them the governance system in Zambia is rotten. And I told them that’s why I’m before you. Can you give us some money to restructure the police, the judiciary? You have to be honest but UPND if they think that they’re going to get IMF on their side with issues like Mumbi Phiri hanging on their heads, I think well, I’m here to see. They must be talking very nicely to them but governance issues rank higher than economic issues,” she warned. “They can ignore inflation, they can ignore the unemployment, they can ignore ghost workers but there are people at the table. The creditor nations, bilaterals, who will not ignore issues like such of my sister Mumbi Phiri. So when you say the issues of Pheluna [Hatembo], why was she abducted and all of the sudden she reappeared a week after the inauguration of this government? Why? Who did she meet a week before who told her that she would be released after inauguration? Was it me who was to be inaugurated? Was it president Lungu who was inaugurated? So please colleagues from the UPND, if you want to release these issues, you may end up hearing things you don’t want to hear. Either you leave it because I know as we are talking now that one of the Hatembos has been given a job in Monze. Is it Edith Nawakwi who gave him a job? And Pheluna herself is at her house in Mazabuka probably even without a spoon of salt. We understand that. So when UPND members keep poking me and saying things, you may end up hearing things that you don’t want to hear. I want to know why she was released a week after inauguration [of President Hichilema]. That’s the question. It appears to all and sundry that it’s okay for Hon Felix Mutati, [Kelvin Bwalya] Fube and the others to support UPND and remain in UPND Alliance and retain their names but it is not okay for Nawakwi to support the party of her choice. It would have been okay if I had supported UPND. Then I would have been a good girl. But having supported someone else, they keep on saying, PF! My friend, I’m leader of FDD. I also know that the issues that we have raised today, are very important, they require deep thinking. We don’t need any emotions. What I’m saying is that let us work from where we are with the little that we have. There is already a budget like my brother in Mpika says, it is practically impossible to access CDF. That’s correct.”
And Nawakwi said the country cannot only depend on the IMF package as it may not be available in the next two years.
She said the country needs an alternative economic plan, “which it has not seen since the UPND took office”.
“What are we going to do? And these are serious questions. When you walk out, on the street are hungry, needy [people] desperate to survive. You begin to think, to see threats or actual distress which can cause very, very bad injury to individuals and the country. You cannot have a country which puts all the eggs in one basket. I think for the entire 11 months of our colleagues being in office, we haven’t had an alternative development paradigm. It’s as though the IMF package is the saviour and everything that is required. That’s not the case. If we ever get that package, the way the numbers are going, I can say with certainty that it’s not coming just in the next few months. Maybe in another two or three years, because if you look at the domestic debt, it is going in a different direction,” noted Nawakwi. “If you look at this, all the figures according to what I know, having worked with the IMF, I can certainly say that the famous package may not be working in the next few months. I heard our President say that ‘watch me by June, you read my lips’ and yet I can’t read anything. But the question that we need to ask ourselves as a nation is, is this package meant for debt relief so that we pay our creditors? What is the programme that we Zambians have in place? For my mother in Chama to put food on the table? That’s a programme that I’m looking for from the government. The country is in trouble if the Minister of Finance’s plan is to wait for the IMF bailout package. That’s a programme that we as Zambians need to sit down and discuss. A local Marshall plan, right to get ourselves out of individual economic quagmire and get our nation out of abject poverty.”