PARLIAMENTARIANS MUST ASK
…how much foreign trips by President Hichilema have cost Zambia so far
From KBNtv-02.02.24
Zambian legislators must table a question in parliament asking the Minister of Finance Situmbeko Musokotwane to categorically state how much the government has spent on foreign trips undertaken by the head of state since he assumed office almost three years says international relations analyst and published author Ambassador Anthony Mukwita.
Mukwita said official answers from the Ministry of Finance on the cost on taxpayers could end speculation of how many trips have President Hichilema has clocked and how much they have cost Zambians to bring closure to the raging matter.
“Legislators owe it to the electorate to get the entire truth and stop rumours regarding this on and off matter of the Presidents so called unprecedented huge number of trips taken abroad including how much they have cost taxpayers to this day,” Ambassador Mukwita on the widely followed ´The Analysis´ current affairs programme aired live on KBNtv that co features CEO Kennedy Mambwe.
Ambassador Mukwita said, the question before parliament could also help settle the matter of what trips are important and which ones could have been handled by Zambia´s missions abroad to serve tax payers money, currently speculation is that President Hichilema has flown out of Zambi at least 51 times or more since becoming President, more trips than even first President Kenneth Kaunda who was in office for 27 years and predecessor President H.E Edgar Lungu.
On the same programme, Ambassador Mukwita and co-host pastor Mambwe jointly called on parliamentarians to table a question before parliament on the ´real number ‘of Zambians that have perished from cholera since the disease broke out last October, with international death figures hovering between 500-550 or ten deaths per day.
The scourge of cholera has returned to Zambia after near eradication in 2018 to 2019 because of poor sanitation and contaminated drinking water and food.
Recently, even as Zambians died needlessly of cholera, President Hichilema undertook a foreign trip to Botswana, as he implored Permanent Secretaries to cut down on flying abroad.
President Hichilema fought his predecessor H.E Edgar Lungu ferociously on foreign trips which he declared were a waste of tax payers money but has ostensibly fallen on his own knife on the matter. See less
— at KBN TV.
Indeed he brought out his knife against ECL’s foreign trips. He sharpened it and took aim at ECL not knowing he was going to fall straight on it. One just wonders how sincere he was in opposing ECL’s trips. May be it was because he was not the one who was President and travelling. Simply put, HH was just envious of ECL’s trips. Now he has to outdo him so he ends up as the President who travelled the most. These are African leaders for you.
Correct
You can imagine having these characters as policy advisers and trusted members of Lungu’s inner circle. Just like their boss, they have no shame. Lungu in 2015 confessed that he had no vision for Zambia. He again confirmed that he still has no vision for Zambia during the so called opposition alliance press conference when he was asked by a Journalist. So with Lungu nothing has changed. He’s still the same vision less politician.
Now can you imagine, one without a vision managed to minimize cost of living &esp prices of essential commodities, yet, this particular, only mànaged to make everything worse than he found them! In all fairness, ECL managed affairs of citizens much better &was cautious about livelihood of it’s people, esp ordinary ones.
And, at this rate, nothing seems to be coming down& citizens ought to know that it’ll just worse as the year progresses..
Ba Mukwitwa,
1. Sate House expenditure is approved by Parliament. There is no expenditure of Public Resources that can take place without Parliamentary approval.
2. Parliament has a Committee called PAC (Parliamentary Accounts Commitee) that reviews Public Expenditure, this is matched against the Approved Annual Budget that Parliament had approved for the Minister of Finance to spend. And state House is only a line item in the yellow book.
3. Now you come here to suggest that Parliament look at the President’s travel expenditure. Have you bothered to read the PAC report that PAC submitted to Parliament to debate? And if it was debated what is your point? As the institution you are asking to raise the issue has a mechanism to do what you are suggesting and if it hasnt why not quietly petition your area Member of Parliament in writing than come hear to “grand stand”?
As a Journalist, a Former Newspaper Editor and Former MD of a National Paper this article shows how detacted you are from your professional training and now just want to engage in “Ruble-Rousing” a quality we see in a mentally ill person as defined by DSM-IV as an Attention seeking disorder. Bane Politics ya nsala show as people rushing to write articles without forethought. You are a Professional Ba Mukwitwa. Act like one.
Certainly, there’s nothing wrong in making a review &/or further scrutiny! Surely every well-meaning citizen should be concerned about these trips by the head of state, regardless of what’s already there ..esp that there’s a tendency of manipulating already existing procedures by people in government.
See, if a president can make a trip abroad to attend a private event organized by his personal colleagues, it’s just in order for citizens to raise concerns &it’s utter insanity for anyone to speak in ways that suggest to gag them.
By the way, in any health democracy, every opinion should be heard, without being written off eh..