This country is being run by a corrupt, chicken run mentality, says FDD leader Edith Nawakwi.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on the audio that was posted on social media purportedly of one minister in cahoots with a district commissioner and other functionaries were plotting to loot resources, apparently the much talked about sugilite, from which the same minister expected to get K2 million, Nawakwi said she was sure there will be no action on the matter because public looting is treated as a tithe in the ruling UPND as opposed to a criminal offence.
“I have previously said that he’s sitting and presiding over corruption. Last week, we did say that this country has enough resources for us not to go begging before the IMF, not to be undressing before the IMF, which I call the international movement of famine. We don’t have any reason to be undressing ourselves because the IMF which spreads destitution and in certain cases cause civil strife which in some instances results in the toppling of governments,” Nawakwi said. “So now when I say the country has enough resources, rare stones, the most precious emeralds in the world and then you hear these recordings and you see a head of state chasing someone who owns a chicken-run, you know it’s a chicken-run mentality running our country and Africa.”
Nawakwi said it was clear to all the reasonable Zambians that the pronouncements from President Hichilema and most issues around him were a facade as he was completely incapable of fighting the cancerous corruption that has blighted his administration.
“Hichilema is presiding over stinking corruption. He’s incubating corruption, sitting on it and for him that is like frankincense. How do you explain a person closing farms with 800 workers on the basis that there was purported money laundering and you make 800 workers destitute and you go dancing before the IMF and say you want job creation?” Nawakwi asked. “And we watch in disgrace and extreme embarrassment that you have ministers looting and their supervisor is smiling at them, because they assume he’s taking care of his supporters. In that audio he says even the one they fear, that minister can talk to him. Meaning the leaders are aware of the corruption.”
Nawakwi said “this is a President who leaves State House and goes and commission’s the Lusaka-Ndola dual carriage way when the financial modalities have not yet been finalized.”
“There is nothing he can do about the corruption in his administration. But if you who is working from Daily Revelation they will want to know where you got your bicycle. What his ministers are doing is not criminal, it’s tithe to his party,” Nawakwi said.
She said those in the west invested so much “in this person hoping he will bring transparency and good governance.”
“But he is not what they expected. The thing with the Americans is that they flip. In Angola they supported Jonas Savimbi. But we all saw what happened when they gave up on Savimbi, M.H.S.R.I.P,” said Nawakwi.
