By Staff Reporter
President Hakainde Hichilema is being an alarmist over his corruption pronouncements in order to divert public attention from his failures to run government, Wynter Kabimba has charged.
And Kabimba said nothing has changed in the manner UPND is running affairs as compared to PF, as they are both hypocritical.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Kabimba, who is Rainbow Party leader, urged Zambians not to read too much into President Hichilema’s pronouncements on corruption, as there is nothing tangible coming out of it.
“We are told that there were ghost suppliers of goods and services and the Ministry of Finance was paying these ghost suppliers of goods and services who paid them? Surely there must be records at the Ministry of Finance if what HH is saying is true. Should it take more than two months to dig out those records and refer those to the investigating agencies?” Kabimba asked. “So he’s being alarmist to divert attention of the public from his own failures to run government.”
Kabimba said late Fredrick Chiluba did the same when he assumed power in 1991.
“He made us run for months if not years telling us the problem is UNIP. So we are running through the same culture, unless for the young ones who voted for him and they were not there in 1991,” Kabimba said. “Those are the guys who will get excited. For me who was there in 1991 this is the same record playing, appearing to be self righteous and proving nothing, prejudicing investigations against the others and doing nothing.”
Kabimba said he found it difficult to believe the President’s pronouncements when not even a single arrest has been made in “the 60 days after Bally took over”, except the prejudicial statements he has made.
“Prejudicial in the sense that the pronouncements seem to tell you that almost everybody in PF was corrupt. And if that is true, we don’t want to support anybody who was corrupt, in PF or any other government where there is evidence,” Kabimba said. “So let them move, we don’t want to hear about that from the President anymore we want to hear announcements from investigating agencies that we have investigated Mr Kabimba and we have found him wanting, and now he has been arrested and charged for corruption.”
He said even former president Edgar Lungu used to claim that he was fighting corruption.
“What is going to happen, his own people now will get engaged and will get involved in corruption. That I can guarantee you, and he will continue making the same pronouncements. So we want proof,” Kabimba said. “You can’t get the incident of Faith Musonda, ‘no we are recovering stolen (resources)’, and you are talking about Faith Musonda. Faith Musonda was not a PF officer or official. She didn’t serve in the PF government. So if that is your evidence about corruption in PF then you have missed it.”
Kabimba said in saying so he was not in anyway defending any wrong doing that could be there, as anybody who committed an offence should be held accountable, and those who know they are innocent should not start to cry that they are being persecuted. However, Kabimba said this was the same UPND government which said people would not be arrested without carrying out investigations, yet Davies Chama recently went for days in police custody without being charged.
“I don’t think that UPND is doing anything different from PF. I mean I am calling this myself a change of guard without any change. That’s all it is. They are just being as hypocritical as PF was. So there is no difference in my view, and the end for UPND will be exactly like the end for PF,” Kabimba said. “The same things they condemned PF about locking up people before full investigations, those are the things that they criticised PF about and they are doing the same thing. So if they are doing what PF was doing, the end can only be the same. That is the law of nature.”
Kabimba claimed that even the issue of cadres have not ended, saying UPND cadres were hiding under the guise of council officers and taxi drivers were still being charged.
“The fact that the one collecting the levies now is a crocodile and not a hippo does not change the practice,” said Kabimba.
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