By Staff Reporter
Hakainde Hichilema is not Jesus Christ to say ‘let there be water in Kariba’, says ZNBC board member Dante Saunders
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Saunders said Zambians elected a President and not God.
“We have elected a President. We did not elect Jesus Christ. So HH is not Jesus Christ, he’s the President of Zambia. So he can’t get up one morning and say let there be water in the dam. There will never be water in a dam. So we have got to depend on the weather when it comes to the issues of Kariba,” Saunders said, and that the President has taken it upon himself to see for himself the problems he said started a long time ago. “Issues to do firstly even with the generators. Was there need to replace the generators? Because as far as I am concerned there was absolutely no need to change the generating sets there in favour of the Chinese generators that we see in place there. Because those generators have been put there to be able to pump water at the level of the capacity of the dam … You can’t even find where the old generator is. Where has such a big equipment gone?”
Saunders said one must understand to the fullest why the country was where it was today.
But asked on the arguments that even if the country were to do away with the issues at Kariba, the generating capacity would still not require people to face 12-hour load shedding hours, Saunders said he was inclined to believe that but he could not quantify it as he had never done any exercise into this nature.
He, however, said that the country was on the right path owing to the many waters bodies for generating enough energy to satisfy both the domestic and international markets if fully utilised.
“That we are not spending much on electricity units (owing to load shedding hours), for me the inconvenience is very high. Is very very very high. It’s really very inconveniencing to know that you don’t have electricity. If you have got electricity you can always minimize, but if you don’t have it then you have a problem because what are you going to minimize with if you don’t have it?” Saunders said.
He said he was happy the people of this country were speaking out now and must continue to do so as that is something he has always fought for for many years.
But asked if the country should completely do away with the exports to satisfy local demand, Saunders said he was not aware of the contracts entered into.
“I do suspect that it was rather the type of contract where you could not get out of. Because if we could then I urge the President to look seriously and try to get out of these contracts. That’s the best way I can answer. I want to be very fair in my comments,” said Saunders.
