By Patson Chilemba
There was nothing new that President Hakainde Hichilema said during his press conference, says former Commerce minister Bob Sichinga.
And Sichinga said he does not believe that the inflation rate is around 11 percent, saying if that were the case it is supposed to be showing in people’s pockets through the prices of goods and services, which are unfortunately very high and causing a lot of suffering.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Sichinga said he expected much more from President Hichilema, not only from his press conference but also on his assuming office as President.
“To be frank with you there was nothing new. In my opinion there was nothing new that the President said. He was clarifying what he thought were the issues. In my opinion, I was looking for the road map. Because what is the elephant in the room right now? It’s the economy. What was said about the economy?” Sichinga asked, saying that even the issue of Zambia working with Congo to enhance their resource endowment was something he had said before. “The question that still remains is what is the road map? When do you think that will happen even if you signed the agreement today? When do you think it will be effected? I have no idea. In fact I thought what we should be saying is that I am setting up a team, a special task team that is going to be looking at this right now so that we can then take advantage of that. Where is the Industrial Development and empowerment programme?”
Sichinga said the President was talking about value addition, but did not mention within which timeframe that would be accomplished.
“What is the relationship between us and Congo to be able to give effect to that? Fantastic idea, as an idea…I have not heard the programme. I have not even heard that people are working on it at the moment,” he said.
Sichinga continued.
“Where are we starting from? What are the things we are prioritizing as important? What are the things that the ministries, the sectors are going to connect to? How are we going to get to vision 2030 which is just a step away? What is the story about the 8th National Development Plan? What programme are we implementing? Is it the PF programme of 2023 which is about the revival of the economy or is there something else?” Sichinga asked. “If there is something else what is it, because we have not seen a document that says that this is the plan that UPND has as a government to be able to take us to where we need to be. Because we all know there is a problem here. We need to create jobs.”
Sichinga asked “where is the plan to create employment opportunities for the 7.5 million youths, to create value and in the process create employment”, including plans on how the economy would be revived.
“How? How? Not just to talk about ‘I will revive the economy.’ How are you going to do it? What is it that you are going to prioritize?” Sichinga asked. “There should be a plan when emergencies arise like that (the Ukraine crisis). We must be able to say ‘as a result of the contingencies that have arisen, this is how we are trying to deal with it.’ It may not be necessarily 100 percent but at least you must have a direction. That’s why I am talking about a road map…what GDP growth are you accepting? Something that was talked about in the budget? Are you aiming for something higher? How much employment do we want to create over the next five years of UPND tenure of office?”
He said an overarching programme was needed so that the public could monitor and keep track of what the government was doing.
“I haven’t seen that. I was expecting a lot of this. And it’s not unusual when you go into office not to be aware because there were so many things on the ground that we needed to be identified. I think that after six months you should be in a position to say now we are working to do this plan,” Sichinga said. “What role are we going to expect Agriculture to play? What will be the contribution of Agriculture to GDP? At the moment it is at 2.9 percent. So where do we want to be…is that where you want it to be as a contribution to GDP? If not what are we doing to revive? Because that is the major source of our revival plan.”
Sichinga said any country, especially one with limited resources prioritized programmes in classes.
“We need to talk about value addition. Where are the factories going to be located? For me we need a comprehensive roadmap” Sichinga said. “Not just sporadic statements about things which are disjointed. No! We want a consistent situation.”
He said he did not believe that the announced inflation rate was the real one, saying otherwise the people would be seeing that in the prices of goods and services, which are unfortunately going up owing to the price of fuel and other things.
“I don’t think that inflation is coming down, to the contrary. When you don’t have sufficient resources in people’s pockets as at the moment, everyone will tell you, people are struggling right now. There is no use telling them that inflation has come down to 13 percent I don’t believe it’s at 13 percent. I think it’s still around 25 percent,” Sichinga said, saying the government was playing on people’s minds. “if those are the figures they have given, I don’t believe it’s true.”
Sichinga said he has not even heard how the $1.4 billion the government is trying to secure from the IMF would be utilized.
“We have been told the debt is at $21 billion. So the question is will $1.4 billion deal with that? How are you going to split it? Yes there is need to reschedule the debt, yes there is need to have resources to ignite the economy, to revive the economy. And the question is what numbers are those? Have we quantified? When is that going to take place? How is the money going to be used?” Sichinga asked. “We are going to have another situation like we had in PF where monies are borrowed prior to identifying where these resources will be used. Remember the $750 million that was borrowed?”
Sichinga said he was in favour of what the President was seeking to do with Congo, but that there was no programme in place.
On the issues to do with KCM and Mopani, Sichinga said President Hichilema did not explain how he was going to deal with the KCM issue.
“If we are going to combine efforts with Congo, who is producing, whose copper is it? Is it Zambia’s copper or does it belong to a company? If it belongs to a company you can’t just walk in there and say now we are taking over, unless you change the rules. So what I am saying is that he has to explain to us how. It seems to me at State House thoughts are brought up but they are not thoroughly analyzed to concretise the idea,” Sichinga said. “If it’s not concretised into a programme you are wasting your time. So what I am saying is that we need to agree, first and foremost who owns the copper that is on the surface? It belongs to a company, and as we speak right now Vendatta has an interest. They are the major share holder. ZCCM owns how much? 20 percent.”
Sichinga said he wanted to known why the government was intent in selling KCM, wondering why investors from the outside should be sought and why it was not possible for the government to run it themselves. He reiterated that Zambians should own mines like KCM, but that there should be no interference from the government, in the same manner the former ZCCM was allowed to run with the top positions held by Zambians, including himself, Francis Kaunda, Alex Malama and Hachipuka among others.
“My suspicion is they want to sell it to somebody else and I can almost bet you my bottom dollar, before the three months is over it will be sold to somebody. And you will come and tell me that I told you so,” Sichinga said. “I am aware that that is going to happen. So what I am saying is what’s wrong with Zambia owning the mine, now? If you are going to have this joint venture and you want to take advantage of it with Congo.”
Sichinga said the only hindrance against Zambian professionals running the mines was because of political interference, in the same manner the PF administration was doing.
“What you are having now is this Milingo nonsense. So there is nothing wrong with us saying we are not selling, we are going to run it ourselves? What is wrong with that? If you are going to have this joint action with Congo what are you going to put on the market? 20 percent (which government owns through ZCCM-IH in the mines) of your 800,000 metric tones produced from the mines is what? It’s a fifth,” said Sichinga.
