Maravi

A govt of liars, by liars, for liars

A govt of liars, by liars, for liars
Written by Editor

This is truly a government of liars, by liars, for liars. It is very clear that this is a government that has devoted itself to advance, promote, protect and defend liars and their lies. Honest people have no meaningful place and role in Rupiah Banda’s government.

In his scheme of things, honest people have to be fought and destroyed so that liars and their lies can dominate, prevail and rule. People’s interests can never be served or advanced by liars and lies; lies are against the interest of the people.

What Rupiah is creating in this country is a society where people are rewarded for being liars, dishonest, for being mercenaries. How can people be expected to be honest in a nation where it pays very highly to be a liar, to be dishonest?

Not very long ago, Rupiah and George Kunda told the nation that Dora Siliya was given permission to do what she did by the Solicitor General. But yesterday, this same Solicitor General they were claiming gave Dora a go ahead said something different; said he didn’t give Dora such advice. This is how Rupiah and George are running this country; they are running it by lies, deception, manipulation.

It seems they are permanently wedded to lies and they are so discomforted by truth. Those who tell the truth automatically become their enemies and they never spare a moment to attack them, smear them with filth.

This is what they tried to do to Ng’andu Magande. Rupiah went public claiming he had documentary evidence showing that Magande wanted to corruptly forgive Zambian Airways of its debts to state-owned institutions. The only letter that Magande ever wrote on this matter was published and contained nothing of what Rupiah claimed. After that, they got into a shameful display of very desperate lies, with Ronnie Shikapwasha trying to claim Rupiah had another letter, different from that which was published. We all know very well that this is not so. Rupiah doesn’t have any other letter different from that which was published that Magande ever wrote on this matter. All that Rupiah tried to do was to pile lies on top of one another in an attempt to politically eliminate Magande from competition. Political competition is the essence of multi-party democracy. And anyone who tries to use political methods that stifle such competition is an enemy of multi-party democracy.

We have not been spared from Rupiah and George’s lies. It’s not very long ago that Rupiah was beamed on national television and radio accusing Fred M’membe and Mutembo Nchito of having pocketed US $30 million from state institutions and that he was going to get this money back from them to build schools, hospitals and so on and so forth. Again, investigations that he himself launched have proved that his claim is not true, it is a lie. The investigators from Zambia Police, the Drug Enforcement Commission and the Anti-Corruption Commission have not found such theft by M’membe and Mutembo. And they are today admittedly under a lot of pressure to find something – even if it doesn’t amount to US $30 million, even if it is just one cent or one ngwee – to pin on M’membe and Mutembo. And now some of these investigators are saying they will just effect arrests and let the matter be decided by the court so that they get themselves out of this pressure. This is understandable. How else can they survive by doing an honest job under the pressure these crooked elements are exerting on them? One doesn’t need a lot of intelligence – a little is all what one needs – to realise that, to see that Rupiah and George’s lies on M’membe, Mutembo, Zambian Airways and indeed Magande have dried up, have been exposed for what they are – shameless lies.

But it’s clear that Rupiah and George have no other methods they can use other than lies. And this is why on the matter of Zambian Airways, M’membe challenged them to arrest him and take the matter to court. This is not out of arrogance. It is simply out of a desire to have the truth known.

Rupiah and George are spending most of their time concocting lies and defending lies with lies. Instead of devoting their time to the serious problems and challenges facing our people, all they do day in and day out is to scheme, to try and figure out how they are going to fix M’membe, Mutembo and Magande; how they are going to sort out The Post and permanently impair its capacity. No wonder many Zambians are today complaining about Rupiah’s ineptitude, lack of capacity to address national issues. This is actually a circus and not a government. These are the most petty leaders this country has ever seen. It is clear that they have a lot of time to fight ordinary citizens and to try and destroy institutions that were created by our people over many years of hard work because they are at sea. They have no clue on how to deal with the problems and challenges the country faces. All that Rupiah seems to know well is how to intimidate, manipulate and brutalise fellow citizens who try to stand up to him, who try to question his decisions and actions. Everybody in the MMD is being silenced today. Even MMD backbenchers don’t feel free to debate motions in Parliament the way they want, lest they are reported to Rupiah and are told off or threatened in all sorts of ways.

This is not the way things are supposed to be. Trying to create fear will never develop this country. This is why we have chosen to speak our mind whatever the cost. If we were praising Rupiah, he would not be busy concocting lies about us. We would probably be very comfortable. But then, what kind of life is that? We can never and we will never compromise our principles and interests of our people just to be comfortable.

A government should never tell lies about its people. Indeed, it should never lie to its people. However difficult things might be, a government should strive to be honest and deal with its citizens in an open fashion. This way of governance may be difficult and painful for leaders but it pays the best dividends in the end. It is not too late to learn some lessons from Levy Mwanawasa’s presidency. He had many problems, he struggled with many issues but he tried to build an honest government. In the end, it is clear that Levy was able to drive the country forward.

Those that worked with Levy learnt that he did not tolerate wrongdoing and anarchy. He did not hesitate to hand over his ministers to law enforcement agencies if he thought they had done something wrong. This type of approach benefitted our people and Rupiah would do well to learn something from it. But is he capable of learning from that? Learning something requires a positive attitude towards it in the first place. You can only learn when you want to learn. We are not saying Rupiah is incapable of learning anything. He is every day learning new ways and tactics of telling lies. But this is not the type of learning that the nation wants from him because it doesn’t benefit anyone, including himself in the long run.

Rupiah may think we are saying this because we don’t like him. But what we are saying has nothing to do with like or dislike. It has to do with what is happening in our country. Things are not well. Just when we thought we had said goodbye to the hooliganism that characterised Frederick Chiluba’s presidency, Rupiah is allowing his minister to be harassed by party cadres at the airport. This is a reflection of the kind of leadership Rupiah is bringing to Zambia. The cadres could not harass a minister if they didn’t believe they could be protected by the President. These are the offshoots of a dishonest and unprincipled leadership. And these things will get worse if all of us decide to remain quiet for fear of reprisal from Rupiah.

Rupiah and George are not ashamed to use discredited elements, scoundrels of all stripes and shades to call for the resignation of Mutembo from prosecuting corruption cases on behalf of the Task Force. George has been at this issue for a long time. He has tried all sorts of ways to get Mutembo out of this very important national assignment. George tried to create all sorts of problems for Mutembo so that he resigns from this important undertaking. He antagonised Mutembo with the Director of Public Prosecutions, trying to create unnecessary enmity between them. But we are glad today the DPP has seen through George’s manipulation and he is starting to chart his own way. George has destroyed, through deception, the standing of many lawyers in the service of government. We know that he tried to abuse Sunday Nkonde’s professionalism when he was serving as Solicitor General. And just today, we now confirm that George tried to abuse the professional integrity of Dominic Sichinga, the current Solicitor General. This is George. It cannot be denied that George has made the life of Attorney General Mumba Malila very difficult. But as we have already pointed out, Rupiah and the nation will pay very highly if George is allowed to continue on this path. Before Rupiah knows what is happening, George will create so many enemies for him and use that insecurity to keep him around in his job. He will antagonise the Catholics, the media, civil society organisations and create so many problems for Rupiah and put himself as his own saviour and protector. It took time for Levy to see through George. And when Levy saw through George, George became very insecure. But Levy was able to make progress he had seen through the folly of George’s machinations and snake-like behaviour. Today, George is using the same tactics to try and deal with Mutembo. George never gives up on settling personal scores. The man is so petty. To him, everything is about winning and losing. Even his language is not fit for a Vice-President of this country. He goes to Parliament and starts planting innuendos, attacking ordinary citizens who have no opportunity to defend themselves in the House. Some of the things George says and does are so childish for a person who is the vice-president of a country.

Not too long ago, he received the same discredited characters who are today calling for Mutembo’s resignation in his office. They were petitioning him and asking him to remove Mutembo from the Task Force. Before George could even read the petition, he already knew the contents and started telling the nation through the media how credible the petition was because Mutembo was supposed to be involved in racketeering, money laundering, theft and fraud.

How did George know the contents of the petition before he read it? It was very clear that everything was stage managed by him. Like George, his boss Rupiah also addressed what we’ve referred to – a stage-managed solidarity march to State House in which he accused M’membe of pocketing US $30 million from state institutions. Today, the investigators are being paid lots of money to investigate who pocketed the money. Can they tell the nation how much money was pocketed? Even the charge that they are trying to bring against M’membe and Mutembo in which they claim that US $1.7 million was stolen from National Airports Corporation by the two gentlemen can never show that anyone pocketed that money. Whatever is owed to National Airports was not pocketed by anybody. If it was, show us because The Post as a shareholder is also interested in knowing who was pocketing Zambian Airways money. Such lies should never be fed to a president.

And when he is fed, a president should not repeat such lies. But Rupiah is not being fed on a diet he doesn’t like – lies are his chosen diet. They are simply giving him what he wants. We say this because not every lie that Rupiah tells has been fed to him. The man also creates his own lies, he is a liar in his own right. He is not a victim of lies. Rupiah is actually a party to the manufacturing of lies that his government is dealing in. And that’s why he is more comfortable in the company of liars than in the company of honest people.

Labels: RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 3:50 PM