I HAVE been concerned about this country from as far as the 1990s through praying and asking pertinent questions of why we are in the space we are in as Zambia, says New Heritage Party president Chishala Kateka.
And Kateka says the PF is the worst of all the regimes the country has had so far.
Kateka, who last week announced her intention to run for office of president, noted that Zambia should be miles ahead of where she is today.
“We have got all the resources and we have the human resource…with the human resource, even if you didn’t have these other resources, we would have ensured that we get far ahead of where we are. There are many countries where they don’t have the resources, the natural resources but they have the human capital and are able to think through and help their nations to get ahead but we have both, Zambia has extremely intelligent people. However, we fail to get into the space that we should be,” Kateka said.
She said with the abundant natural and human resources, Zambia had failed to achieve anything.
Kateka said the problem had to do with the mindset.
“When you think in a certain way, you will behave in a certain way. There are certain mindsets that we have as Zambians, common to us, which prevent us to get ahead. So from 2002 to 2006, four years, I took a Sabbatical from work and I started an NGO called Youth With a Vision for Zambia and I bought a bus and we used to go into provinces. One province we could go for a month and move from place to place speaking to the youths saying guys we have got to take our destiny into our hands. We had identified about 23 mindsets that are common to Zambians and which prevent us from succeeding and those youths that we spoke to did about five provinces and they are now saying this is it,” she said.
Kateka said her spiritual conviction and dedication to the nation had driven her to step into the political arena.
She said when Zambians get to heaven, God would laugh at them having not utilised what He gave them.
Kateka revealed that she was a founder member of the Godfrey Miyanda led Heritage Party but she could not do both politics and work.
She said she was chairperson of the finance committee of the original Heritage Party.
Kateka said contrary to what many think, she had been in politics for a while and learnt a lot from Brig Gen Miyanda, among others.
“He has taught those of us who belonged to that party, he de-registered it…but now the reason that party was formed in the first place was about the Zambian people and when you look at the Zambian people now, I am sure you will agree with me that we are not in such a good place. Therefore, there is a cause which is the Zambian people and we cannot say that cause has been fulfilled,” Kateka said.
She said the New Heritage Party was not riding on the old Heritage gathering manifesto as things have evolved over the years.
“We will be launching our manifesto shortly…one of the things we learnt from the old Heritage Party is that people lift things from your manifesto and before you know it…for example, that statement more money in the pocket came from us, from our manifesto 2001. I can open it and show it to you so if we bring it out, other people will grab it and take it and take the glory,” Kateka said.
“Zambia has got a lot of wealth and God has left that wealth for His children. If you go to Zimbabwe, He has given the Zimbabweans their heritage, so our heritage is our wealth. What we have been having constantly is the fathers of the nation…it’s like a father who gets wealthy and then starts giving that wealth to children of the neighbours, never giving the children of the house their wealth,” Kateka said.
And Kateka said research has shown that a lot of people in Zambia were angry with the PF.
“I think we could have done much better than this (current state of the nation). I think this has to be, am afraid to say, of all the regimes we have had, it has to be the worst that we have had. I am afraid. I am sure it is difficult to run an economy etc but I think that we have been dropped from this to this (High-Low) in a very short time,” Kateka said. “This debt thing is extremely shocking for all of us. I suppose it’s something when we get in we’ll see the difficulties of running government but looking from outside, it’s what we see, that the PF is the worst administration since Zambia became independent, yes in my view.”