STOP WASTING OUR TIME …talking about things Mr Hichilema himself is failing to do, says Kalaba
By Rhoda Nthara
CITIZENS First president Harry Kalaba says President Hakainde Hichilema must lead by example.
Kalaba said he who goes to equity must go with clean hands.
He noted that none of President Hichilema’s predecessors have travelled like he has done under three years in power.
“If there’s any person in that cabinet room who should not talk about travelling it is Mr Hakainde Hichilema because Mr Hakainde Hichilema has scored almost 70 trips in the last three years of his governance. None of his ministers has travelled like that. He is the only one that has travelled like that. None of his predecessors in that office has travelled like that,” Kalaba noted. “So when he is talking about austerity measures, when he said tipeleke ndalama ku chipatela (we take the money to hospitals), he his not serious. He is being very hypocritical. And we should call him for what he is, for who he is. He should stop playing games with Zambian people.”
He told The Mast, in an interview, that President Hichilema has not restrained himself from travelling.
“He has not restrained himself from using government machinery even when he is going for a private funeral. He chooses to take the entire Zambia Air Force, the entire army commands, the entire, everybody travels to go with him in a trip. That’s not how it works. The President can choose to even go for a funeral with a lean of politicians but he doesn’t’ do that. So what is he stopping the Minister of Defence [Ambrose Lufuma] or Minister of Energy [Peter Kapala] or whoever, what is he stopping them for because they don’t move as much as he moves?” asked Kalaba. “So President Hakainde Hichilema should stop wasting our time and should stop talking about things he himself is not doing. He should lead by example, not just talking then he wants others to do what he himself is failing to do. We won’t accept that.”
I don’t listen to him… stopped long ago. Incompetent through and through.
Can he tell the nation which ministers travel a lot in Zambia? Some ministers haven’t seen the outside of Zambia from the time they were appointed..It’s always him in the air.
Wrong diagnosis won’t yield the desired results… Dollar racing to K26 again.
Mr. Kalaba, you were in government for many and at senior level for that matter, so you know these things even better than some of us, so don’t tell us that you are all that dull. Actually, it is you who should stop wasting our time by avoiding to comment on issues which you have not analyzed. Kindly know that what makes the presidential trips expensive is not the frequency but the quantity. Many analysists have already analyzed these presidential trips for ECL and HH. For ECL, just to arrange or chatter a plane for the trip, say to UNGA in the USA, it used to cost about 18 million, then add a box of imprest for an undisclosed amount in Us dollars plus a big delegation of more than 80 people comprising government and party officials, party cadres and musicians. When you add the grand total, it was a very huge amount. When you come to HH, the same process, to chatter a plane for the same destination, the trip costs about 3 million or slightly above, this time, no box of imprest or kasaka ka ndalama. Besides that, he takes a very lean delegation of 20 people or less and when you add the total, the amount is very small compared to the other one. You can see that one trip for ECL to the same destination was ten times more expensive than that of HH. That is why people say that Lungu was a very weak president because he used to fail to control some of his cadres, they had powers to impose themselves even on presidential trips something which does not happen with HH.
The other point is that the eras or times that we live in differ, so it’s very illogical to compare HH’s era to that of his predecessors. For example, during Kaunda, there was cold war between the east and the west but there was no el-nino that time, this time we have el-nino but no cold war. That time they had none aligned movement this time we don’t have it, so presidential trips are associated with the prevailing situation. If president HH has come at a time when there is El-nino and is invited for a summit in Scotland or Dubai for Climate Change, he has to travel because such a meeting is very important and relevant to our time. At one time the Kenyan President William Ruto said, “as the president, travelling is part of my job,” which was true. No person is an island, you have to move around and make, consult and interact with friends, that is how you can learn from them, get help from them and that is how you can attract investors to help you improve the economy in your country.
Thirdly, people also look at the strengths and weaknesses of someone, for example, if people know that HH is strong in the area of negotiations, they had to nominate him to be among other African leaders to go and see Presidents Putin and Zelensky and he went to Ukraine and Russia and that was an issue demanded trip as opposed to a happy travel trip. As a country, it was also a plus because it shows that Zambia is recognized not only in Africa but globally.
So, I reiterate that what makes presidential trips is not the frequency but the quantity, if I take 10 glasses of water in a day and a horse takes only once, it does not mean that I have taken more water than the horse, no. In those ten times, maybe I have only taken 2 litres compared to a horse which can guzzle about 60 litres at a go, my 2 litres are a just one sip for it.
Lastly, all presidential trips come with invitations, otherwise there is no president who can just wake up one morning and start dreaming of where to go, in other words, HH does not just travel aimlessly, he follows the league fixtures. You cannot compare a premier league player to a first or second division player, the fixtures are very different. Zambia is back in the league.