By Isaac Zulu
Patriot Front national chairman Davies Chama has said described the story attributed to the International Monetary Fund to the effect that the PF administration engaged in corruption and inflated figures of government contracts that benefited the elite as nonsensical.
In an interview, Chama said that the IMF is not an investigative agency but is merely colluding with the UPND government to propagate the narrative that the Patriot Front government was corrupt.
“Since when did the IMF become an investigative agency? The world over I have never heard that the IMF is investigating corruption and who got money from where and which contracts were awarded to who. I don’t think that that is their mandate. But we are not surprised to hear such sentiments coming from the IMF because the IMF is in collusion with the UPND. And that is why people are losing confidence in some of these institutions. They pretend that they have come to alleviate poverty and yet they have come to perpetuate poverty,” Chama said. “It is very unfortunate that the IMF can today insinuate that the Patriot Front government was engaging in corruption. If an inquiry was to be done, that story can be suspicious. That story can only come from the UPND who have been telling that narrative of corruption in the PF to these institutions because this is what the UPND has been propagating from the time they formed government. So that story is nonsensical and it is not worth commenting on because it has no facts whatsoever. Have you heard of any person in this country who has been arrested for awarding contracts? The only arrests we have in this country are that somebody has built a house somewhere, someone is suspected to have shot somebody somewhere or someone was trying to bring a helicopter down. I would not want to comment on unfounded allegations of corruption.”
Chama said that the UPND administration is corrupt and want to mask their corruption by calling others corrupt.
“They are the most corrupt, the most crooked to the core. And because they are corrupt they want to mask their corruption by calling others corrupt. The kind of corruption in the UPND is frightening and scary,” Chama said. “Talk about their failure to deliver fertiliser and medicines in hospitals. Basically all economic fundamentals are out of the window. It is as a result of massive corruption under the UPND government. Don’t be deceived by those sentiments coming from the IMF.”
He claimed that “when the PF bounces back into power it would do away with the IMF because it is wants to perpetuate poverty in developing countries.”
“Our colleagues in the Western world do not want Africa to have infrastructure that would spur economic development. They want to perpetuate poverty. The IMF wants to ensure that the Zambian people continue wallowing in poverty. We had an engagement with the IMF when we were in government but we did not agree with their conditions such as the increase in electricity tariffs, the high cost of living and so on,” Chama said. “We couldn’t agree with the conditions they were propagating. We managed to be in government for 10 years without the IMF. And we can manage without the IMF when we form government in 2026. There are a lot of organisations and countries that you can sign bilateral agreements with. And a number of countries are doing away with the IMF in the region. Tanzania is one of them, China is also one of them. And a number of countries are managing without the IMF bailout. So we can manage without them. We don’t even need them, in my view. We don’t need them.”
He said that the story of the IMF bailout implications of the 90s is everywhere for everyone to see.
“Most manufacturing companies were in Ndola but they closed down. Ndola which was an industrialised town became a ghost town because industries were closed down. The IMF bailout culminated in massive job losses, it brought joblessness, Chama said.
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