By Patson Chilemba
State Counsel Wynter Kabimba has charged that it will be interesting to see President Hakainde Hichilema “bite his tongue” in Kabwata in trying to change his position over the many lies he told to get to power.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Kabimba said it will be interesting to hear President Hichilema campaign in Kabwata in reconstructing his message away from the promises he made while in opposition.
He said he noted that the first time the President came close to acknowledging the variance between his promises and the reality now that he was in government, was during his New Year’s message.
“He was actually walking away from everything he said during his time in the opposition. He was saying to Zambians that the road ahead will be hard…brace for difficult times ahead, it will take a while before we can enjoy any comfort, before your expectations can be met,” Kabimba said. “I found his new year’s message very interesting, but also a message of a man that is proud of himself, full of himself that he thinks he can take Zambians for granted before acknowledging that he told a pack of lies. A man who thinks people can accept his message now without any iota of remorse that he sought the highest office by riding on lies.”
Kabimba said President Hichilema rose on the gullibility of Zambians and a political party in power which had no message.
“It will be interesting to see how he unpacks this perception to launder his image, which Zambians have come to associate him with…so Kabwata will be difficult because he will have to explain how fuel prices have to go up before they can come down, that we are in the process of increasing electricity tariffs with a view of lowering them in the near future,” Kabimba said. “That we still believe in free education when University of Zambia students are being charged high tuition fees and how those so-called non-vulnerable students will have to pay boarding fees to the tune of K1000, and that the Dollar instead of appreciating is actually going through the roof.”
Kabimba, the Economic Fighters leader, said the President was in a big predicament for which he has no choice but to own up by telling Zambians that he “told them lies in order to get into State House.”
“I would refer to it as tongue biting. I can’t call it as tongue twisting because in trying to twist his tongue he will actually bite it. It will be to much to try to justify his message,” he said.
Put to him that the President could genuinely argue that cadreism in markets and bus stations had subsidised, and that the Constituency Development Fund had been significantly increased from K1.6 million to K25.7 million and that several students will actually be reporting back to school without having to pay tuition fees, Kabimba argued that he recently watched Education minister Douglas Syakalima on Sunday interview, and that he seemed to have no clue in terms of what policy the government had framed on free education.
“He was asked a question on ‘how does a parent know or not know whether I am supposed to pay boarding fee?’ He said ‘that should not be a problem because by 10th January, 2022 (the day schools were initially due to open) money will already have landed in school accounts’,” Kabimba said. “Which money will have landed without evaluation of which pupil is vulnerable or not? Secondly, he had no guideline, and up to now schools have not received any guideline. That is what led to the deferment of schools opening, it’s not Covid, because the man sounded confused, so they had to hide in this Covid.”
Kabimba said he suspected that if the administration was confused on just one component, the same confusion would extend towards the CDF, which encompassed a lot of components including constituency projects, youth empowerment, women empowerment and student bursaries.
He said the UPND administration were manifesting that they did not expect to win the elections “but then accidentally won and are having to deal with the complexity of running a government.”
Kabimba argued that there was no one in the UPND, including the President, who was running a successful business they could draw experience upon to run a government.
He said in the case of the President running Grant Thornton, “there was nothing intelligent in auditing” when one had already been presented with all the data, upon which they charged a fee to conduct works, saying it was not like the law profession he was coming from where people were presented with complex cases to handle.
Kabimba also said there was nothing special with cattle ranching, as peasant farmers had done that for centuries, and “anyone to take cattle for dipping.”
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