By Staff Reporter
Former Health minister Angela Cifire says the people of Eastern Province have gotten a raw deal in terms of appointments that matter from Hakainde Hichilema, saying it should be brought to the President’s attention that he would not have won without that Province.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Cifire, who campaigned for the UPND in the 2021 general elections, said people should not even be talking about Eastern Province not having leadership today, as that was the only province that had produced two presidents, Edgar Lungu and late Rupiah Banda.
She said what people were scared to talk about was “the fact that in the UPND arrangement, Eastern Province has been marginalised.”
“There are no positions that have gone to Eastern Province that one can talk about. That is the issue they should bring about clearly not hiding through not having leadership and so on. No!” Cifire said, referring to the argument involving Lameck Mangani and former Eastern Province PF chairman Miti over the lack of leadership in the province. “The fact that we had Eastern Province sidelining, if I may call it, their own, who was Edgar…the difference between Edgar and HH was very small this time. Which meant that Eastern Province put their money on HH against Edgar. So in terms of politics the cake should have been shared equally.”
Touching on the recent list of some diplomatic appointments which was skewed heavily towards Southern and Western Province, Cifire said “this is what I am saying that the issue Mangani and Miti are bringing across should not be about lack of leadership. It precisely should be talking about the kind of appointments that we have seen that has skewed towards everybody else and not Eastern Province. So what they should have been saying is that we have not seen appointments in positions that matter towards Eastern Province.”
“That is what we should be talking about and bringing attention to HH that without Eastern Province, it would not have been met. Because what would have happened was that like as always, Eastern Province would have chosen to give its votes towards their own who was Edgar at the time. But this time they said no, we are not looking at tribe. We are looking at change, which people are talking about” Cifire said. “And they did that. That is how HH managed to beat Edgar. So when it comes to sharing the cake, can we share it equally.”
The 2021 general election results in Eastern Province was a split between then incumbent Edgar and Hichilema, with the former getting 51 percent of the votes against the latter’s 49 percent.
Asked why she has been too quiet, having been very vocal in campaigning for the UPND in the 2021 general elections, Cifire said “you know sometimes it’s either you are too quiet because there is nothing to say or you are overwhelmed with things and just say okay let be just watch.”
“Where you sit and say okay let’s see where we are going,” she said, and asked where she felt the country was headed to one year after the UPND was elected into office, Cifire said “maybe we have been slow but I hope, I have been listening to the radio today and there is something going on that is talking about PPP and some committee formed or something, I hope it’s going to allow Zambians take part in business.”
She said there should be a reality where when investors come here, they should truly do business with Zambians and not just alone, saying against that the country would never build the capacity to have the money the foreigners were coming with, as where they were coming from they had incentives which were not available for Zambians.
“Private Public Partnership it’s got to be in a real sense with Zambians. Because the equity Zambians have is that they have the land, they may have the knowledge, but the resource they may not have is money…it’s not just allowing every Jim and jack to come and setup on their own, it will never help us. And we will never build the capacity for Zambians to do anything,” Cifire said.
Touching on the issues surrounding the ownership of KCM and Mopani, Cifire said at some point, Zambians were told that the mines were useless.
“That’s how these people came in. And yet they had been given all the incentives, they were given tax breaks and so on,” Cifire said. “…the mines which they said had no life in them suddenly we are told no, these mines have a lot of life in them. Oppenheimer, everybody is back into Zambia, which was supposed to be useless. It means that it’s not useless. We have got the Chinese crawling all over…when people talk about Zambia being the best destination of investment it means that they get what they do not get in other places. And this can only be that we give them more incentives than they get in other places. That’s what makes it attractive.”
Cifire said if investors were to be given incentives, then the same should be given to Zambians to level the playing field.
She said foreign investment should be meaningful, including the jobs created, not one where people are told “go and mop up there, and you say no, this is employment that has been created. That is not the thing.”
Cifire said the reason why everybody was politicking was because of lack of jobs.
