By Staff Reporter
FDD leader Edith Nawakwi says President Hakainde Hichilema and his team have a “mental block” as they cannot provide Zambians another path outside “the treacherous IMF route.”
And Nawakwi said instead of sending “rabid dogs” to the gates of the big mining companies, President Hichilema has seen it fit to send agents before small scale miners who use hoes to collect royalties from them.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Nawakwi said President Hichilema and his team are not smart people.
“So if you ask me what I think, we are dealing with a group of people who are not smart. They are not negotiators. They can’t give us an alternative development path. They are stuck. They have a road block, and they have a mental block,” Nawakwi said. “The trio (IMF, Dr Musokotwane and Dr Kalyalya), and their supervisor. They have a mental block because if you go on the streets, Kalyalya will tell you that the Kwacha is stable, but just go on the streets, the Kwacha is stable because there are no transactions happening. Just go on the streets, stand by Cairo road and watch every shop and count how many people go in one of the shops, any of those shops and come out with anything. No one is transacting. No one is purchasing anything.”
She said the Kwacha may appear stable when money was “swept” from off the streets, but warned that that was a temporarily lead as it will blow up
Nawakwi described the IMF conditionalities as a reflection of the incapacity by “this group of IMf praise singers, to understand the society in which they are working.”
She said reading through the document she was of the understanding that the main theme was about the stability of the Kwacha, saying there was so much concentration on how to “artificially stabilise the Kwacha”, rather than creating a permanent solution.
She said Finance minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane and the Bank of Zambia Governor Dr Denny Kalyalya, “the two financially illiterate persons, whose school of thought is monetary policy” and “working with a person who has no skills in government management”, thought that manipulating interest rates and the exchange rate was equal to development.
She charged that their supervisor had no alternative view, as there was no where in the world where that has worked.
“Neither Musokotwane nor the lady at the IMF can point to any success story of their treacherous path,” Nawakwi said.
She said there was no success any one could point to as a success story by squeezing the local economy, and that because President Hichilema has no alternative, the outcome was what the nation was experiencing, as the country was not protected from the shocks of expensive electricity tariffs.
She said Zambians were coming back from a position where they were told that Zesco was incessantly increasing tariffs to recapitalise the company during the days of massive load shedding, saying the idea was that they wanted to invest in power generation, something she said has been achieved with excess exports and that this was the time Zambians must also be reaping the benefits.
“This was Hakainde’s campaign promise. As usual baibala bamwelapo tu tea. Now it’s shameful for anyone in government t to give tax relief to foreign companies such as mining houses in terms of royalties. I mean the big mining houses have huge exemptions,” Nawakwi said. “Now compare them to the small scale miners. This callous insensitive government has even contracted bailiffs who are going to start camping at mining sites. They are calling them Agency for collection of mineral royalty taxes from small scale miners. These people are equivalent to the bailiff, they will be camping at mining sites owned by Zambians. That he is prepared to do against his own people. Any normal government with any sense would have done the opposite. They would have put rabid dogs at the gates of the big mining houses. But they can’t do that because these are their partners.”
Nawakwi said the UPND administration would rather disgrace a Zambian miner in Mkushi using hoes, describing that as a failure to address injustices where minerals are being shipped abroad and “we remain here snoring and going to undress before the International Monetary Fund.”
She said just the gemstone sector alone would be enough to raise so much money for the country to attract dignity globally, saying the country was rich but has a mentally bankrupt cadre of politicians whose only interest is lining and accumulating personal wealth.
Nawakwi said Zambians every day see unrefined copper, gold, and cobalt leaving the country, yet the politicians here were running around celebrating the acquisition of $1.3 billion from IMF.
“You go and borrow $1.3 billion you pay wages, meaning you are paying for consumption. You are not investing and in five years time you have to repay. What is it that they are doing to be able to get that money to pay back? So they are putting loan on loan,” Nawakwi said. “We are coming from Covid, this cadre of politicians should have used that to get debts written off. They should have gone back to China and requested for relief directly from the Chinese. Instead, America in whom they have gone in bed with has lured them away from people who actually put money for development. For example they have cancelled the loan for Masaiti dam…up to $2.2 billion for infrastructure development. According to them the loans were expensive but them being a new government they should have gone to China and said please can you give us relief on interest, we can borrow at equivalent rates equivalent to the concession window of the World Bank and the Chinese would have agreed because the Chinese have been rescheduling our loan, they have never collected the money from TAZARA.”
Nawakwi said the Chinese have been Zambia’s all weather friend, claiming that the Americans themselves have been borrowing from China but “they tell Hakainde don’t borrow from China. Alaa!!! Where is the logic?”
She said she has never seen a school in Zambia built by the Americans, but she has seen infrastructure projects from the Japanese for the construction of the veterinary schools, including what Irish, British, Chinese and other aid has been able to do.
“I mean you would be foolish as a leader to get given the mantle and start rushing to where there is nothing for you. They have taken what we call a mountain they can’t climb,” Nawakwi said. “These same Americans, they have said no subsidies on, I am saying Americans because principally IMF is controlled by America, they have already started scaling down on food production. But in the document they say Zambia has been self sufficient in food, and then they touch where it matters most and say remove subsidies (FISP).”
Nawakwi said the idea was simple on removing subsidies as there were very few countries on the continent which produced maize surplus, therefore they wanted to flood Zambia with maize from America.
She said in any case, if the country produces maize in excess, the IMF should have advised President Hichilema to start an ethanol plant to produce more ethanol from maize.
“You can start producing ethanol musaa. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Nawakwi said while knocking against the table.
Nawakwi observed that the country could produce enough maize for the whole continent without resorting to the IMF.
“There is drought in North Africa, Kenya is facing a problem, Congo has no food. Who has common sense honestly to start talking that no, as I heard the other day, that can we produce millet? How do you produce millet? You cut trees,” said Nawakwi. “They are not smart. That is what I have concluded. These are not smart people. That’s all.”
