By Daily Reporter
Hakainde Hichilema’s word is not worth trusting as he has failed to honour his promises, say former Commerce minister Bob Sichinga.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Sichinga said Zambians were now buying mealie meal at over K270 per 25kg bags, fuel at almost K30 per liter, the Kwacha trading at K21.26 to US$1 and the debt struck Vedanta has been given power to run KCM again, something he said they failed to manage already.
He said all this pointed to failure by Hichilema to govern.
“It’s an obvious case. You know if for a president, a President’s word is like a semi-commandment,” Sichinga said, saying people expect that when a president says something he won’t end up flip-flopping. “What did the President say to us about the exchange rate? 10 in the morning you swear me in, 14 hours it changes. Isn’t that what he said? He also talked about mealie meal. He said it will reduce to K50. Next he raised another issue. Fuel he did the calculation. He actually worked out a calculation and displayed it to all of us. We saw with our own eyes. What did he say about KCM and Vedanta? He said it would have been gone a long time ago. What has happened now in his speech to parliament? He described the same as good news that it’s back. What does it tell us about the President’s promises? That he can’t keep his promises. Correct. That’s all we can learn from that.”
Sichinga said Hichilema has failed to honour what he said and therefore “his word is not worth trusting.”
He wondered who else the people should trust if they could not trust the President’s word as leader of the country.
Sichinga deviated a little by praising the President for the “nonsense” Edgar Lungu encouraged of caderism, but argued that the Hichilema has not addressed the problem of corruption.
He said President Hichilema has displayed beyond any shadow of doubt that he can’t be trusted going by how he has failed to honour words which came from his own mouth.
Sichinga said President Hichilema was now talking about coups without providing any evidence in order to prepare for a totalitarian regime, against the wishes of peace loving Zambians who are against coups, saying this was reversing the gains he has made in bringing about order.
He said President Hichilema was renaging on almost everything he promised.
“The economy is in shambles despite his very great effort,” Sichinga said, saying he gave credit to the President for increasing the CDF but wondered where he would get the money to fund the programme, and that the issue of the Lusaka-Ndola dual carriage way was also in shambles.
He said mines minister Paul Kabuswe was today saying that Vedanta would not be able to make profits until after four years, wondering if he has now become the spokesperson for Vedanta.
“The minsiter should be speaking on behalf of ZCCM-IH. That’s his job,” he said.
Sichinga said Zambians right from the moment Hichilema came to office have been insisting that he goes to China as that should have been the first trip he made, on account of China being the biggest creditor.
He said he was glad the President has made the trip now but that was on account of the debt restructuring programme as it was China that pulled out.
He said China was also the biggest contributor in ensuring that the price of copper was now at around $8000, and that should have been the more reason why a trip to that country should have been made first as they were going to help him improve the income generation and also value addition from mines like KCM.
He wondered what KCM would do now which they did not do before.
“So yes he has failed to govern in accordance with what he himself promised,” Sichinga said.
He said calling for the President to resign is not tenable as the constitution does not have a provision for that but the only thing Zambians can do is to say that they would not vote for him in 2026.
“That’s how it works in this country and that’s why I am surprised he’s even talking about coups. There will be no coup. There shouldn’t be any coup,” said Sichinga. “Because all we know Zambians are very decisive when they take their vote but in between they are so relaxed. They showed Lungu, he lost by a million votes. What is there to stop them from doing the same with this one? The cost of living is unsustainable for most families so the benefit of free education are not being realised because people are spending their time on issues of food. How are the going to sustain the lives of the children who are going to school? So these are major failures.”
