By Patson Chilemba
There is no way you can avoid people being employed through connections in an economy like Zambia, says Economic Front leader Wynter Kabimba.
And Kabimba said he never signed a contract with anyone that he should not meet President Hakainde Hichilema.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on information that police secretly recruited 1000 police officers, mainly connected to the ruling UPND and senior officials in the government and UPND, with Inspector General of Police Graphael Musamba indicating that 4000 were recruited as opposed to the 3000 announced to Zambians, Kabimba said recruiting people based on their connections was unavoidable given Zambia’s situation.
“Listen I will tell you in all honest myself. In a country like this where employment opportunities are limited, in a country like ours, in an economy like ours where employment opportunities are limited, where police is advertising for police recruits and they have 30,000 applications and only want 4000 (3000 announced to Zambians), there is no way you can avoid people being recruited on the basis of your connections which they have,” Kabimba said. “So this is not peculiar to UPND, it happened in PF. It was happening in PF. It was happening in MMD. The only political party that I can’t speak with great certainty will be UNIP. But UNIP was different because the economy at that time was totally different.”
Kabimba said nobody could claim that it was wrong on the basis that others did not do so, because they did it, saying what the country should instead focus on was to develop an economy which would provide for employment opportunities for all who qualified.
“I think the argument in my view should be: are those 1000 that have been recruited through connections if that is true, do they qualify or not? I think that should be the question,” Kabimba said.
And Kabimba said he never signed a contract with anyone that he should not meet President Hichilema
“But compromised, whom have I entered into a covenant in the opposition for them to call me compromised. I don’t have a social contract with anybody, I am just a member of the opposition like everybody else,” Kabimba said. “So I can only be compromised if they say, well we agreed as opposition political parties that none of us should meet this man (President Hakainde Hichilema), so the fact that he has done it means he’s compromised then we can have an argument.”
But asked what it was he went to discuss with President Hichilema at Community House given that he has been one of the most outspoken critics of the President and the UPND adminitration, Kabimba said it was a private visit and not for any public consumption.
He said when the President was having an official meeting there was a presidential flag posted before them but there was nothing of that sort when he visited Hichilema and that First Lady Mutinta was also present.
But Kabimba said he would not recommend the same route he took to see the President for the other opposition leaders as they were not obligated to use his visit as a lesson.
“I wish people were accommodative of other people’s views instead of being linear in their views that only their view matters and every other view is wrong. I have trained my mind in such a way that each time I form a view about something, I still say to myself there could be a better view out there than mine,” said Kabimba.
