By Staff Reporter
The first thing on the UPND administration’s to do list is lying, says FDD leader Edith Nawakwi.
Nawakwi said the argument by President Hakainde Hichilema for the country to continue exporting electricity despite the deficit in the country in order to maintain the outside market, showed that his “boardroom style of managing the country is not working.”
She argued that she was the architect of the ERB and Southern African Power Pool Acts when she served as energy minister under the late Frederick Chiluba, saying the measures like the Southern Africa Power Pool were introduced for purposes of depositing power during surplus times and withdrawing it in times of deficit.
“I am the one who did the Power Pool Act as Energy minister in 1994. I was minister so I understand. We did thinking beyond it. We created the common carrier so that when you generate power through solar for instance you can integrate it into the Zesco pool. He should just take the notes in the SADC power pool and understand how it works,” Nawakwi said. “There is no way you can say you will lose power from Namibia and deprive someone from Kalingalinga welding the door. That is boardroom management. The role of the President is to secure the interests of Zambians.”
She described the President’s justification for the exports despite the announced local deficit as corporate greed.
“I am getting saddened with the way this administration is going about doing issues. The other day I was looking at the Health minister saying in the first quarter of next year there will be medicine in hospitals, but she was talking to someone who was burying a child at Chingwere who died without medicine. Then the President says don’t worry I will give you fertilizer next year. But the question is what will they eat next year since the fertilizer this year has been delivered late? Same as when you export power under deficit, you are depriving your own country,” Nawakwi said. “The engine of any economy is energy. At least they have admitted that they are exporting. They wanted to lie. They said there was no water. Yachoka kuti manzi yochitila export power (Where has the water to export power come from)?”
She said at one point President Hichilema allowed Zimbabwe to use Zambia’s water allocation for power generation having depleted their own resources, but that that too did not make economic sense.
“You generate electricity and sell to them. When they exhaust their water sell them electricity. That’s how things work. The problem is that the first thing on their to do list is lying,” Nawakwi said.
But asked if she could advise if those in government saw sense in the matters she was raising as opposed to just raising them in the media, Nawakwi said the problem she has with President Hichilema is that he thinks he knows it all, saying he was different from one of his predecessors Michael Sata who would pick up the phone and call to talk to her on some issues she had raised.
She said if President Hichilema saw no need to reach out to her, there were other people who have served in government before whom he can consult on certain matters.
“He doesn’t listen to advice no wonder he is surrounded by yes men. What can those children surrounding him advise him? Bana ba mailo (children of yesterday). Even if they may have degrees, but can they advise him on the political economy of this country?” asked Nawakwi. “And they keep saying the price of fertilizer is because of the Russia-Ukraine war. But where has the President of Tanzania got the fertilizer from which she’s selling at equivalent K400 as opposed to the over K1000 it’s going at here?”
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