THE UPND structures in Central Province say they will not abandon party leader Hakainde Hichilema to be maligned by the PF and its sponsored voices, on the privatisation debate.
Provincial chairman Albert Chifita and Kabwe district UPND chairman Cosmas Musumpuka addressed journalists at Luchi Lodge in Kabwe on Friday.
Mumbwa Central member of parliament Credo Nanjuwa also spoke at the event, on his own behalf and that of other UPND lawmakers from Central Province.
Chifita said the privatisation topic in Zambia was about politics and that it would continue to be a subject for people with malicious mindsets
“[But] as Central Province, we are saying enough is enough. We are saying if HH is brought to Mukobeko in Kabwe, Central Province would react. We are not going to allow a situation where HH is going to suffer, when we know this is politics,” Chifita warned.
He charged that FDD president Edith Nawakwi had exposed her “shallow mindedness in the manner she continues to” link privatisation solely to Hichilema.
“We are aware as UPND that Edith Nawakwi is part of PF – she was promised a job. Now, she has to do this assignment on behalf of PF in order to make HH not to appear on the ballot paper next year. [But] that will not work! UPND is a threat to PF. Is it possible for a sane man or woman to believe that HH is responsible for most of the suffering of the people, especially on the Copperbelt? The answer is no! HH never sold a mine…” Chifita said.
“In 2017 we were watching our president being arrested [for treason]. But this time around we are not going to allow that kind of thing to happen. We are prepared to die with him, if it means dying. We are not going to leave HH alone. We can’t continue to let our president being accused of things he has not done. Let the government mention everyone who bought government assets during the privatisation programme, just like they are wrongly mentioning HH’s house. The Bible is very clear that whatever is planned in the dark will be known in the light. We are aware that they have a taskforce to probe one person and that person is HH.”
Chifita argued that Nawakwi could not today be a champion of corruption.
He told every UPND supporter in Central Province to be on their feet to observe any PF manoeuvres against Hichilema.
On his part, Musumpuka condemned Nawakwi’s attacks on Hichilema, “in the sense that we are very surprised that the privatisation talk took place two and half decades ago.”
He asked what the interest of bringing the matter today was.
“There should be a lot behind the scenes. We are surprised that Nawakwi has only cited HH in this discussion of privatisation, leaving out the chairman of the Zambia Privatisation Agency, Valentine Chitalu. Why are others left out? We challenge Nawakwi to mention the one who headed the legal team and other key members of the [Zambia] Privatisation Agency. Nawakwi was the Minister of Finance when privatisation was taking place. What did she do when she realised that our president (Hichilema) was a thieving one, as she claims? Then she is part and parcel of the thieving,” Musumpuka said, adding that successive governments never hyped the privatisation topic.
“[But] why today?”
Meanwhile, Nanjuwa said: “when we analysed the allegations against president Hakainde Hichilema, we realised that this is a campaign game.”
“We are very happy that president Hakainde has not fallen prey to a game where some are saying if he went to court, then he is vindictive. There’s no vindictiveness! The PF is playing this game through a surrogate like Edith Nawakwi, so that they divert our attention from issues which are prevailing in our country,” said Nanjuwa.
“But we have not forgotten many issues like the Auditor General’s report, the FIC report (Financial Intelligence Centre), the gassing issues, the fire tenders, the ambulances. We also know that the PF do not want to issue national registration cards to our people in Central, Lusaka, Western and Southern provinces and now they want to divert our attention from this very important process, that should have started on the 1st of September, 2020. We do not want to buy the gimmick of introducing the privatisation debate; what we are demanding as Central Province is that we want the NRC issuance to begin now. So PF and their surrogates should leave president Hakainde Hichilema alone!”