By Staff Reporter
Hakainde Hichilema is acting like a hypocrite over his bloated appointments of permanent secretaries for special duties, Economic Front (EF) leader Wynter Kabimba has charged.
And Kabimba said he has information about a lady permanent secretary who is bossing people around, writing emails to her subordinates in the night and ordering them to provide answers by 06:00 hours the following day, saying the same official created a scene at KKIA after she passed through the immigration cordon without clearance.
Speaking with Daily Revelation over the appointment of four permanent secretaries in charge of special duties at Cabinet office, Kabimba saying it was interesting to see to what lengths President Hichilema and his subordinates were going to justify his appointments, saying in some many years working in the local government and in the open civil service, he had never heard about the position of permanent secretary special duties, where even the job description was not clear.
He said President Hichilema was simply creating an environment of administrative confusion at Cabinet Office, especially with four permanent secretaries working under an “insecure” acting secretary to the Cabinet Patrick Kangwa, who is a holdover from the previous PF administration, who also happens to be the head of the civil service.
Kabimba said acting secretary to the Cabinet Kangwa was suffering from extreme insecurity as he had to supervise permanent secretaries in charge of special duties.
He said the President was using his prerogative to reward people that seem to come from the regions and families that supported him, adding that “the same man criticised ECL that he had saturated the civil service.”
“He’s acting like a hypocrite, because there is nothing these four PSs will be doing at Cabinet office apart from undermining the authority of the Secretary to Cabinet. They see themselves closer to the President than Patrick Kangwa, and what he will do is sit back like a lame duck and watch things getting bad,” Kabimba said.
And Kabimba said he had information of a lady permanent secretary who is bossing her subordinates, sending emails to them in the night and ordering them to provide her with answers by 06 hours the following morning, when they are supposed to report for work at 08 hours.
He said this was the problem when the head of state appointed overzealous people, in the same manner late former president Frederick Chiluba did when he appointed PHD holders as permanent secretaries who ended up bossing people around, even when they knew very little about how the civil service operated.
Kabimba said that the same lady recently created s scene at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport, when she passed through the immigration cordon without clearance, saying an immigration officer tried to call for her attention, but she scolded them saying “you mean you don’t know me?”
“How can she expect an immigration officer to know her?” wondered Kabimba, saying not many people in the country knew permanent secretaries especially facially.
