UPND USING PRIDE AND POMP TO HIDE THEIR INCOMPETENCE – FORMER MINES MINISTER MUSUKWA
FORMER Mines minister Richard Musukwa says the UPND government is using pride, pettiness and pomp to hide its incompetence.
Speaking when he featured on 5FM’s “Burning Issue” programme, Thursday, Musukwa said the new dawn government wanted to project the PF as “dull and misguided lots” to hide their inept operations and corrupt practices.
“I listen to such theater and drama which I ignore because I don’t want to be responding. And I’ve ignored it for a long time because we have allowed our friends to have space to work and operate. But for the sake of our country, we can no longer be quiet. The propensity by the UPND government is meant to project PF and its former leaders that they are dull, ignorant and misguided lots. We deserve a lot of respect, we ran and managed the affairs of this country on behalf of Zambians. And I think that the pride and pettiness and pomp which our friends want to [use to] hide their incompetence is cheap talk which is meant to camouflage the inept operation and corruption and the illegalities which are currently going on. It can be seen by the decisions that they are making. When you don’t know anything, you better keep quiet or ask the people who know,” he said.
And Musukwa said bringing back Vedanta at KCM would be a reckless, criminal undertaking against Zambians.
“This liquidation process which was commenced by ZCCM-IH was a demand from the communities, the unions, the workers and Zambians in general. In fact, when people were talking about Vedanta and KCM, it was like it was in Lusaka and not on the Copperbelt because everyone understood that this is a failed company and that freshness needed to come back in terms of how we run and operate the mining industry. I want to commend Milingo Lungu who was appointed as the liquidator, he sustained the entire operation including ensuring that production started to increase. And that’s why the government was keen to ensure that a credible investor who should work with the government to revive the fortunes of KCM must come back. And to bring back Vedanta will be a reckless criminal undertaking against the Zambian people,” Musukwa said.
“In that life, in this life and in the future, we will never allow Vedanta to continue grossing the people of Zambia and its resources because they mismanaged the operations. And I get surprised when I see government officials who want to behave like spokesmen for Vedanta, for heaven’s sake stop that! Do your job. Vedanta has got a lot of highly competent public spokespersons who are highly paid”.
He added that the operational challenges faced by KCM had nothing to do with the PF government but the then-investor.
“KCM was facing operational challenges as evidenced by the declined mineral production. And at its various operations, failure to meet its obligations to its employees and this is not a government problem. I hear people were being told that there was a mess which was left, I think if you don’t understand things which are beyond your capacity, ask your directors, ask the in-built reserve information. This is not a government failure, this is a failure on investors. And the government as a regulator must be able to move in. We cannot sit as the government and watch a company come to total collapse. It started failing to meet its obligations to employees in terms of salaries. You’re supposed to get paid on the 24th, you get paid on the 7th. It started failing to meet its obligations to contractors and suppliers who were owed huge sums of money. These challenges are not a recent development at KCM, even at a time we took action, we were aware that KCM was facing such a challenge and the government was engaging KCM in order to ensure that a lasting solution was found,” said Musukwa.
(Credit:News Diggers)