By Staff Reporter
Edith Nawakwi has charged that she has lost her grandchild because of “Hakainde’s self-conceited and larger than Zambia ego”, where he feels that saving the lives of those in Namibia is worthy than saving the lives of the people he was elected to serve.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Nawakwi charged that President Hichilema was overwhelmed with the demands of running an economy, saying “Hakainde is a cattle economist not an economist for an economy. When he counts bulls on his farm for him that is business.”
She said the President was insistent on exporting energy to foreign countries at the expense of Zambian barber men and welders, including those in hospitals, claiming that her nephew lost his premature child in hospital because electricity supply kept coming and going.
Nawakwi said she has heard Finance minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane making projections that the economy would grow, saying she interpreted that as having been aimed for the attention of the IMF because there was nothing locally showing that the economy would grow especially with the crippling load shedding.
“All of us who have been ministers of Finance know that the energy sector is the engine of the economy,” Nawakwi said.
She said the informal sector was key in driving growth but their livelihood has now been curtailed, worsened by the difficulties which come with the new year when people should be making ends meat.
“All they need is for the President to walk on the streets incognito the way intelligent leaders used to do and listen to people’s sentiment,” Nawakwi said. “They said they wanted to create jobs but they are murdering children and murdering jobs. It’s extremely painful for a young person who has had his first child to call me that my child has died because electricity kept going on and off. Hakainde is a cattle economist and not an economist for an economy…Where is the money going to for the export of copper, cobalt and the maize they said they exported to Tanzania?”
She said mealie meal was now becoming more expensive because maize has been oversold to the outside with there being no visible plan to shield the local market.
“My nephew lost a child in Isoka hospital. What nonsense is this that Hakainde is telling us that it’s okay to export because their children are not dying in incubators? He says we are exporting because we want to create jobs. What jobs are you going to create without energy? And have you delivered fertilizer for the export of maize? Because every time you have a bumper harvest foreign exchange comes in but when you create hunger, foreign exchange gets on Emirates and flies out,” Nawakwi said. “They are irritating us and they better shut up because every time they speak is like they get their foot and put in their mouth … Hakainde is a know it all. I told people that this man is self-conceited. He’s got an ego larger than Zambia. He thinks he is Zambia and Zambia is Hakainde.”
