By Staff Reporter
Former Commerce minister Bob Sichinga says President Hakainde Hichilema must own up to his famous calculation when in opposition on how he would reduce the price of fuel to below K13 per liter, saying there is no way that any sensible person can now turn around and say ‘no I’m a victim after all I did not expect that there would be Ukraine war.’
Speaking with Daily Revelation on some of the challenges the UPND administration inherited from the PF, including huge debts and that they did not anticipate that there would be a war in Ukraine which they say has pushed up the price of commodities like fertilizer and fuel plus the low water levels in Kariba which has led to load shedding, Sichinga argued that President Hichilema is not a victim of the circumstances he found in office.
“There is no question of one being a victim. When you are competing you know that there are others in the arena but more important you know that you may be replacing a government. There will always be a government. The reason why a candidate stands is because you are saying that my leadership would have alternatives, or my party would have alternative approaches which would be better. That is the basis. If you don’t have that, what are you standing for? Why are you coming into the market?” Sichinga asked. “Why are you joining the competition if it is not to do better? So there is never a question of saying ‘I am a victim of.’ No! Because you knew, one knows that before they are elected or they fail. It’s very important for anyone of us whoever is in politics to understand that they will always find circumstances which they are saying they will improve on.”
Sichinga said no one could say they were a victim of something they already knew they were going to confront, and that in the case of the UPND they were very specific and clear on a number of things they said they would do.
He said on the issue of fuel, there was even a calculation that President Hichilema drew showing how he would reduce the price to a specific figure of below K13 per liter, saying he was already aware of the circumstances that were prevailing at the time and the alternatives his competitors were offering, but that the UPND administration increased the price of fuel in Zambia even before the war in Ukraine as one of the first actions undertaken on being elected into office.
“So there is no way that any sensible person can now turn around and say ‘no I am a victim after all I did not expect that there would be Ukraine war’. There is always some issue. If it is not Ukraine war, it will be because there is a shortfall, there is a catastrophe somewhere, or there is a change of policy internationally,” Sichinga said on the fuel price which has increased from around K16 to K29 for diesel and from K17 to K27 for petrol in the one year and five months President Hichilema has been in office, adding that there would also be remnants of the policies that the previous government was practicing. “In other words even if your policies are different you must connect them to how you could deal with the problem better than the people you want to replace.”
He said the whole reason Zambians voted for the UPND was because the ruling party promised that they would address matters in a certain way.
“If they said that, why not implement what they said they would do? But what they are saying is that circumstances are quite different now. How are they different? Didn’t somebody know that there is a problem with the issue of the mines? Didn’t they know that the PF were already in the process of dealing with the mines issue, in particular KCM?” Sichinga asked, saying besides that there were issues which were new. “How about the sale of the Kansanshi mine shares? Who has decided that? It’s UPND. How do you blame PF? PF never talked about Kansanshi.”
He said what he sees as the biggest problem with the UPND administration is that there was no plan of action and alternatives, and added to that the failure to communicate to the people of Zambia.
“They must own up to the challenges. That’s why they were elected because they offered an alternative and the people bought into that. So you can’t go back now and say no, no, no now we found it’s different. They were always going to find. Even the next government they will find what UPND has done different from what their own stand is. And that difference is what people elected them for,” said Sichinga. “So there is no reason for them to go out there and start talking about different locations to say that this we can’t manage now because this has happened. No, no. You made a promise, you committed yourself do it. Own up to what you had promised.”
