By Staff Reporter
MDC vice-president Leonard Hikaumba says President Hakainde is indeed a dictator for saying no to corruption.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on immediate past MDC secretary general Lucky Mulusa’s assertions that President Hichilema is a dictator who does not allow people in UPND to even “cough”, and that Technology and Science minister Felix Mutati dumps people after they have helped him to realise his personal objectives, Hikaumba said President Hichilema has given liberty to those he has appointed to work within the confines of the portfolios that they hold.
“There is just one thing that I have seen where probably someone would say he is a dictator because he has said no to corruption. He doesn’t want it. So there is no compromise on that and if he says I don’t want corruption surely I think that is a good thing,” Hikaumba said. “And where he says people should always follow the guidelines of the job descriptions, and if he insists on that I don’t think that is being dictatorial. He just wants people to follow the laid down procedures so that everything is done systematically.”
Hikaumba said President Hichilema’s performance has so far been impressive and significant, when considering that so much had gone so wrong under the Edgar Lungu administration, whom he said left a huge external debt, which he said made him scared having lived through the other debt burden that consumed the nation’s energies at the turn in this century.
He said he placed the UPND performance at 7.5 on the scale of 0-10, arguing that a lot had been achieved in terms of clearing those who retired a long time ago, the social cash transfer has been upscaled and that apart from free education, the schools were happy with the money being disbursed on time.
Hikaumba said in the universities, bursaries have been increased, something he said was unprecedented, and that the 2.5 remainder on his scale was on account of the debt obligation that has to be settled and thereby making it difficult for government to do certain things.
Asked on the condemned practice where people were being arrested and taken to far flung areas for prosecution, Hikaumba said the President does not dictate to the investigative agencies on what to do.
But asked on the fact that some of the things the President promised to do on getting to office was to reduce the prices of fuel, fertilizer and that he would also address the public order act, in addition to condemning to defamation of the President clause, things which are yet to be fulfilled 10 months into the UPND reign, Hikaumba said the promises were being made on the understanding that there was money in the treasury.
But put to him that the President was aware of the dire situation the country was in as he even overestimated the debt figures the PF announced, and should have therefore prepared for that eventually, Hikaumba insisted that when one was outside they could not see the extent of the damage until they got into office.
He said that was why certain things were being unearthed, wondering how people could expect to have money when some individuals were found with bags and bags of money which were not anticipated.
“And I think the minister in charge of health, even there they have discovered that there were certain things that went wrong bordering on expenditure which cannot be explained and huge amounts. Ministry of Lands, the minister was lamenting that some of the records were tempered with, meaning that those were illicit transactions,” Hikaumba said. “That’s why there has been a move now to try and recover the resources that were plundered.”
He said on things which borders on legalities like scrapping off the defamation of the President clause and reforming the Public Order Act among other issues, arguing that the President was the head of the executive and not the Legislature, despite him having the majority of members of parliament and essentially being the one who appoints the Speaker.
He said it was expecting too much to demand that everything must be done within a short period.
“So for now for me I think it’s to early to start say no that there has been failure because the period that the government has been in place is not long enough to deal with everything that was being promised,” Hikaumba said.
He said remaining in power depends on how effective the government would work and respond to what is generally expected of them.
“So for now it’s not easy to say they will stay for this long or that long. The people are the ones who do the assessment, just like they made the assessment that it was time for PF to move,” Hikaumba said. “What keeps a government in office is the performance, the effectiveness to respond and I think the desire for any government or for any party is to be in power for as long as it takes, but it’s up to the citizens.”
Hikaumba said it was not Mutati’s personal decision for the MDC to go into an alliance with UPND, and therefore Mulusa cannot accuse Mutati of riding on other people’s backs to get to his preferred destination.
He said Mutati also did jot have the power to force presidents on who should and should not be appointed as minister.
He described assertions by Mulusa on Mutati as personal, saying there was news circulating where he was attacking President Hichilema that he had promised him a ministerial position.
“So the attacks against Mr Mutati which have been so consistent to us is just an indication that he would have loved to be there himself other than Mr Mutati, or he would have felt good to be there himself than anyone else. So that is being selfish,” Hikaumba said. “I am yet to see someone Mr Mutati has dumped. We need to be done that he has dumped this one, he has dumped this one.”
On Mulusa’s assertions wondering when Mutati would disengage as minister to focus on party operations even as his members wanted him to be on the ballot in 2026, Hikaumba said this was the hypocrisy he was talking about because on one hand Mulusa was complaining that the President was not appointing alliance members but “now he appoints Mr Mutati, again it’s a problem.”
He said the absence of one person cannot affect the general performance of the whole party, as MDC was not weak to suffer paralysis when their president was doing ministerial work.
