START CLEANING UP THE PRISONS…some of HH’s darlings will rot in jail – GBM
By Kombe Chimpinde Mataka
YOU will pay through your nose, warns PF presidential aspirant Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba.
He says corruption in the UPND is worse than in the PF but they are not being followed because the method they are using is selective
“Those in government are a darling of Hakainde Hichilema but one day they won’t be there as well so they have to be
ready. Tell them to start cleaning up the prisons,” he said. “They should be extremely careful because some of them will rot in jail. We can smell a rat.”
Mwamba, who is also PF chairperson for mobilisation, said the price of fuel would go up in the next two years.
“The Ukraine war should not be an excuse to this government for their failures. I don’t subscribe to that. The high price of fuel was never there. How did we manage it? Why can’t they also follow the same system that we had applied? You don’t have to follow the South African system just because you have read about it and you think it can match the Zambian economy. They are totally different economies. That is a developed economy. We are non-developed,” he said when he featured on Muvi TV’s assignment programme on Sunday. “Look here, [president Kenneth] Kaunda was not foolish to bring Indeni [refinery]. This was done just
after independence. He realised that we needed Indeni so that we could pump oil from Dar-es- Salaam. There is a pipeline for those of you who were not born. There is a pipeline still from Dar-es-Salaam into Ndola
–Indeni. Now if they are going to buy finished products, what happens to the pipeline? It will become a white elephant. That cost us money as Zambia that time so we still need Indeni. And let me tell you if we buy crude oil through that pipeline, oil would be cheaper. If we are going to depend on oil which is being transported from Beira, from Dar-es-Salaam which comes by road, it will b expensive.” Mwamba said fuel through Indeni would have been cheaper than it currently
is.
“Next year will be worse. I am a businessman. I have done my mathematics. I don’t see the price of fuel coming down in the next two years. In fact it will be worse. It will be more expensive than what it is now. If you have a little, a small car outside, just know that you will be in trouble. You will be paying through the nose. Be ready for that,” he warned. “It is terrible. So many people are suffering. Including yourself there you are suffering. You may pretend that all is well but you are
suffering. So the only way I can describe it is that it is pathetic. I think one year three months ago, the country was much better than what it is today. People are suffering. People voted UPND, they thought probably their style of living would change but unfortunately, that has not been the case. That is not the case. In fact it has been worse.
It has gone from bad to worse. The situation is bad. Interview, interrogate many Zambians, out of 10, nine will complain. Maybe one, if
you are lucky, would say the cost of living has spared him or her. But I will tell you it’s pathetic. There is no money in circulation.
Nothing is happening. It has a trickle (down) effect. If those up there with money spend, then even those under will have money. Even a marketeer will have money. They think that those who did business in the PF government are all PF not realising that they were businessmen and women who wanted to do business with any government that comes
in power.”
Mwamba said he too was affected because people did not have money to buy from him.
“They have to release money into circulation. We were in power but at least we were releasing money. Most people were getting the fruits of what we are doing. Our party which was pro-poor party made sure that
the money was released to suppliers. Suppliers paid, eventually it got to the marketeer. Today the marketeers have nothing. They have no business,” he said. “Don’t compare PF with UPND. PF was a darling of the people because it made sure that people had money in their pocket.”
Mwamba said Zambians had realised that their replacement of PF had failed.
“And I can tell you that if tomorrow we had to go for another general election, they would tumble like nobody’s business. They will regret that the Zambians mean what they want because this government has done
a lot of people bad. People will not stay hungry to wait for that process to mature. One year three months, that time in PF, we had transformed things. Things were starting to manifest. I was in one of the most critical cabinet meeting where we had to say that we had to subsidise and we had to do that because we could not afford to increase the price of fuel,” he said. “The price of fuel is always raised every month. You know that system they have followed, that is a South African system. South Africa is a big economy. It is not a small economy like Zambia. So they went and tapped that system of increasing the price of fuel every month. That is a wrong system. Today people are regretting that they voted for UPND in power. I don’t have to tell you, you know that. They have really been let down by this
government.”
Mwamba said the debt the UPND inherited from the PF regime should not be used
as an excuse for failure.
“How were we managing to look after the Zambian people with that large debt? We were deferring it. A government will never go broke. Mind you even after UPND, there will be a debt which they are going to leave which another government, more especially now that it is clear that PF is coming back into power, which we will take over and we shall not even talk about…” he said. “All we have to do is make sure we service it and pay off the debt. There is no excuse to make the 18
million Zambians to suffer, go to bed hungry.”
When reminded that Zambians voted PF out because of corruption, Mwamba responded:
“one year, three months, have you seen the corruption which is in UPND?”
“It is worse than what was in the PF government. Look at the fertiliser scandal. Look at the motorbikes scandal. Look
at the $100 million scandal at Ministry of Health. That is the barometer I am using. I am just mentioning a few that we have facts
on. But let me tell you what is on the ground. Corruption in the UPND is worse than in the PF but they are not being followed because the method they are using is selective. Those who being followed are those of us in the PF,” he said. “Those in government are a darling of Hakainde Hichilema but one day they won’t be there as well so they have to be
ready. Tell them to start cleaning up the prisons.”
Mwamba said amidst the problems the government chose to give tax holidays to foreigners instead of Zambian businesses.
“They should be extremely careful because some of them will rot in jail. We can smell a rat,” said Mwamba.