THE HYPOCRISY OF UPND’S CRITICS AND HICHILEMAPHOBES
By Richard W
After 100 days of the New Dawn Administration, reviews have been made on the performance, with optimists giving credit and the naysayers giving their usual doomsday verdicts. However, It is the insincerity and negativity of the later that is shocking. Are they reasonable and justified?
ARE “PROMISES” THE SAME AS “LIES”
There is a narrative being trumpeted aimed at labeling HH a liar. The hypocrisy of this charge is that people are also lying to themselves when they expect HH to be superman. People are doing away with facts, logic and knowledge just to fault-find HH on his promises. If a small loss making company can struggle to achieve a turnaround in three months, is it logical for an economy to do that in three months. Lies are things like the fictitious “sinking fund” that PF announced, and to date both Bwalya N’gandu and Dr. Situmbeko expressed ignorance of such an account. Allow the new administration to build capacity for their goals to be realised. That is what logic dictates because if you expected immediate returns, you should question your own level of intelligence.
LET’S NOT FORGET WE ARE IN DEFAULT
In November 2020, our government defaulted on the Eurobond, a coupon payment of US$42.5 (Same amount wasted of fire tenders) and have been defaulting ever since. This was a red alarm to us, indicating the messed up economy HH was about to inherit. Huge debts, treasury under distress, depleted reserves, low stakeholder confidence, rampant illicit transactions, prevalent corruption, rising domestic debts and depleted liquidity in almost all government institutions. In other words HH inherited the worst government conditions any President has ever inherited since 1991. One has to be a pure breed witch to ignore these facts.
IMF BAIL OUT
The IMF bailout debate is tuning out to be comical. The PF negotiated with IMF for over six years and could not satisfy stakeholders because of their reckless spending. Today the same PF are positioning themselves as anti-IMF bailout. Others like PEP are against IMF because of the conditions, and they have no knowledge of those conditions apart from what they have erroneously adopted from the Structure Adjustment programme.
INDENI AND FUEL PRICES
There is a fallacious corporate nationalism that has mislead Zambians for a long time now. There is this belief that holding on to loss making company is okay as long as they provide jobs. People do not even realise that loss making Zamtel and ZESCO have together gobbled over US$1 billion in the last 10 years. Not through subsidies, but direct working capital support from tax payers. Imagine how many jobs this money could have created. So why shouldn’t we consider real solutions, and not cover our failures with fake patriotism? Why should saving the jobs of 300 employees, who can be adopted elsewhere, be more important than the cost implications on thousands of industries and transporters across the country?
HICHILEMAPHOBIA
Most of HH’s critics are motivated by hate and not reason. This is a cadre of PF fanatics who have been conditioned to see HH through the eyes of propagandists and slanderers. The indoctrinated haters would be fine with Lungu meeting the World Bank, but if HH does the same he is a puppet. HH’s well intended solutions for ZESCO or indeni, will be labelled privatisation by Emmanuel Mwamba, even with zero knowledge of propositions at the table. The hichlemaphobes are hiding behind checks and balances, but their true motivation is their wish for HH to fail.
Lastly, we should remind ourselves that we coming from a recent political history of polarisation and a slanderous political discourse. Polarisation that was perpetuated by the institutionalization of division, discrimination, tribalism and nepotism by the Patriotic Front government. This is what has created a cadre of haters that are finding it difficult to adapt to change and are even finding solace in Sean Tembo, because he is able to fan the flames of hatred for HH. But adapting to change requires seeking knowledge, accepting facts, applying logic and moving along with what works and not what we like. Our hatred will prevent us from being reasonable most of the time.
The fact about our country is that PF left it in deep financial ruin, which apparently they don’t even understand themselves. If PF understood or cared about the mess they left, they would be the last to criticise the current government. However, the biggest delusion PF are creating is the expectation that a leadership with better advisers, better cabinet, better attitudes, less corruption and better bilateral relations will not perform better than them. That will not happen.