PULL UP YOUR SOCKS…Zambians will keep quiet until election day, Sichinga warns UPND
By Fanny Kalonda
DO the right thing, acknowledge when the mistakes have been made, former commerce minister Bob Sichinga has told the UPND.
“So I am afraid I have to say to my colleagues, sorry, pull up your socks. Do the right thing, acknowledge when the mistakes have been made. Whatever mistakes UPND makes or PF makes, it hurts people. It hurts citizens. This must be understood by all political parties including my own. It is very important to understand that you are running a country, you are not running a business. Your personal business you can do as you please. This is a country which is governed by laws, by rules, procedures and the processes that have to go in there. You cannot say because I want it this way, I will do it my way, no!” he warned. “UPND is no different, it is just another party in office. They must also abide by the promises they made. The Zambian people are very very good people, very calm. They will keep quiet until election day. Did they not show PF?”
Sichinga said there is nobody sitting and wishing UPND to fail and “that is why issues like shortage of medicines in health centres, delay in the distribution of farming inputs among other shortcomings are being brought out”.
Featuring on KBN TV’s State of the Nation programme, Sichinga said if the government wants to be methodical it should explain to the public what their method is.
“Many of us are raising this because we want this government to succeed. I want you to understand that, I want the viewers to understand that. There is nobody sitting there and wishing UPND to fail. I have spent a lot of time building UPND. I was its vice president for economy and politics. You must understand that after 23 years of struggle, we are now here, we want this government to succeed,” he said. “The question is that how do we make it succeed. The how question you know as a country we are so full of rhetoric. Right! We talk about platitudes without looking at how do we physically do it. How do we practically survive that. The problem of power is not a UPND problem, it has not started now…”
Sichinga said if the government says it is going to be methodical, it should be methodical and not say one thing and mean something else.
He said the country needs to understand what is going on.
“We are now asking them what is the method? Share with us. If it is methodical, tell us how methodical you are being. What is it that you have looked at? How have you analysed this problem? That’s what we do, planning in business,” Sichinga said. “This is why I am saying if you have to be methodical, you have to give a statement and say ‘as minister of energy, this is our plan’. Not to start telling us we are going to start building a pipeline from Angola. How long does it take to build a pipeline?” he asked. “So what I am saying is that if you say you are going to be methodical, be methodical. Dont say one thing and then mean something else. We need to know. The business community needs to know. If I am not saying it, who should say it – PF? It doesn’t matter which party is in office, the right things must be done. A nation comes before a political party.”
Sichinga called on the government to “pull up your socks”.
“There seems to be an attitude in our party suggesting that everybody that talks about anything, to criticise the government, however constructive it might be is wrong and we never seem to acknowledge the fact that we are failing to deliver on our promises,” he noted. “And this is disappointing because then you cannot build trust. You cannot build the trust of the people when they go to the hospital and know the medicines are not there. Why is it taking their Vice-President to go round the hospitals to check if the medicines are there if they are confident and the Minister of Health is so confident that medicines are in hospitals? Why does the Vice-President have to do that? Why is the Vice-President doing that?. You know you can cheat people up to a certain point, but you can’t cheat all the people all the time. It just doesn’t happen. The best thing is if it has not been done right, it is to turn to the people and acknowledge and say, ‘yes there is a problem here’.”
Sichinga said parliament cannot tell lies about the lack of medicines as it is an oversight organ.
“So I am afraid I have to say to my colleagues, sorry, pull up your socks. Do the right thing, acknowledge when the mistakes have been made. That is the right way and that is how you create confidence. It is evident, you can’t have the medical association saying that there are no medicines, the committee of parliament saying so. Parliament oversees the Cabinet, many people do not seem to realise that. They are an oversight organ,” he said.
“So they can’t say parliament is telling lies because we have medicines because that’s what that suggests so as far as am concerned. This is incorrect and I have to say, I am going to believe in the committee of parliament because I know how they work.”
Sichinga said concern about food insecurity in the country is real following the delay in distribution of farming inputs, especially fertiliser.
“I was minister of agriculture and livestock and therefore I am speaking from knowledge, I am speaking from the experience. The government, the Cabinet, the President and the ministers never came back to tell the people what the problem was. What was the issue and worse still the price at which this material was procured. In my opinion, it was excessive and I give you the example of Russia because it is the cheapest source,” he said. “Having arrived late means, as I am talking to you now, basal dressing is being distributed to the farmers now. This is January, it is passed mid-January, you are delivering basal, Compound D. It is supposed to be now Urea, that is supposed to be going in right now. So that in itself will have a bearing on the growth of the crop. Hence the issue of concern about the possibility of not being able to make the quantities that are being sought because we are dependent on that fertiliser to give us a higher yield per acre of per hectare. That concern about food insecurity is real. It is real because as to what extent depends on several other factors.”
Sichinga said there is need to understand that “you are running a country, you are not running your personal business where you can do as you please”.
“Whatever mistakes UPND makes or PF makes, it hurts people. It hurts citizens. This must be understood by all political parties including my own. It is very important to understand that you are running a country. You are not running a business. Your personal business you can do as you please. This is a country which is governed by laws, by rules, procedures and the processes that have to go in there. You cannot say because I want it this way, I will do it my way. No, you can’t! That’s not how a country is run,” said Sichinga. “UPND is no different, it is just another party in office. They must also abide by the promises they made. The Zambian people are very peaceful people. The Zambian people are very very good people, very calm. They will keep quiet until election day. Did they not show PF? They did.”