By Staff Reporter
This may just be the end of Hakainde Hichilema, says Economic Front (EF) leader Wynter Kabimba on the skyrocketing mealie meal prices and shortages of the same commodity.
And Kabimba said he has always questioned President Hichilema’s competence, given the “easy jobs of auditing and cattle ranching”, saying he was just fortunate he faced a political party that had committed suicide as he could not have won power if he faced a skilled politician like late president Michael Sata.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Kabimba bemoaned what was being described as cheap mealie meal prices offloaded by ZNS at K155, when the same was going for less than K130 before President Hichilema assumed office, with promises that he would reduce prices to K50. He said worse off, the people were not only being confronted with the escalating prices in the staple commodity but the shortages of the same.
He said Zambians could at least tolerate the high prices, but they could not tolerate the shortages.
“It would be very very difficult for him to wave this storm because it looks at the very people’s life. Secondly, the man is living in denial. If you listen to statements coming from his ministers of Agriculture and Finance, they are giving him hope that what is being peddled as crisis is just a figment of people’s imagination when the reality is otherwise,” Kabimba said, reminding the President that he himself while in opposition said that hunger stokes anger.
Kabimba said if the President continued living in denial purporting to show that there was no crisis, “then he’s courting trouble for himself, from the Zambian people who are hungry as it is not just a question of escalating prices but non-availability of the commodity.”
He urged President Hichilema to be careful with the people he listens to during crisis.
“He should stop sitting around community house doing personal business. The conditions we see now are the same conditions that preceded Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s exit from power. If it happened to KK then what we saw as KK’s fate will become HH’s fate,” Kabimba said. “The only difference between the two is that KK came to acknowledge the crisis. That’s why he introduced coupons to try and alleviate the problem … But HH is not even doing anything about it.”
He said not even “the propaganda” that was being peddled on ZNBC ‘cheap’ mealie meal being offloaded on the Copperbelt will help, saying Zambians never witnessed anything like this even at the weakest level of the PF administration.
Kabimba said the crisis has been created by President Hichilema himself who “in a reckless” manner told millers that they were in business and could export the commodity to any place they felt they could make a profit.
But Kabimba said it was ironic that the same administration was urging millers to import mealie meal, wondering which Zambian would even manage to buy the same imported expensive mealie meal.
He said President Hichilema always carried himself as a competent person who was more intelligent than the other people, but his “bluff” has now been revealed to Zambians to see for themselves who he really is.
“This may just be his end if he’s not careful,” Kabimba said. “I ask people this question, which company or business has HH ever run and run it successfully? His background is that of being a partner in Grant Thornton. The other is cattle ranching. Both businesses don’t require a rocket scientist to run. You don’t have to be intelligent to audit. It’s a routine job. You don’t have to think. Same with cattle ranching. You just give animals food.”
Kabimba said for people like himself who have shown interest to delve into President Hichilema’s competence and his background, “the man should not have even been given the job as President.”
“He was lucky he was running against an administration which had committed suicide. If he was running against a skilled politician like Michael Sata, there was no way he could have won,” said Kabimba.
