Maravi

Rupiah is clueless

Rupiah is clueless
By The Post Editor
Wed 21 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT

A leader must be ready to face the truth always. Trying to hide complex problems behind mere words and a minimalist approach to huge problems will not help anyone.

But this is what Rupiah Banda likes to do. Always understating the gravity of problems in the hope that people would be hoodwinked into believing his government’s diet of lies and half-truths.

In a characteristically Rupiah fashion the nation was informed that there is no problem of medicines in our country. According to Rupiah, whatever problems our people may be facing with accessing drugs and medicines is artificial. In other words, the problem does not exist and anybody complaining about it is not really telling the truth. This is what Rupiah wants our people to believe.

We have always said that the problem with lies and propaganda is that they have no legs to stand on. Those who tell lies must tell more lies on which there stories will try to stand. This is what is happening to Rupiah.

A few weeks ago, Rupiah and his minions were up in arms against Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) president Edith Nawakwi when she told the nation that there is a crisis in the medical sector and that our people are having difficulties accessing medicines and other treatments and government medical facilities. Nawakwi particularly raised issue with the gruesome treatment of expectant mothers who were due to deliver.

Rupiah and his minions rubbished Nawakwi’s assessment and accused her of all sorts of things. They were so incensed by Nawakwi’s comments that they started threatening to re-open the Carlington maize deal investigation, which they closed.

Rupiah and his minions resorted to their preferred tactics of bulling and intimidating anyone who does not toe their line. They were not prepared to accept that unpleasant as it was, what Nawakwi was saying was probably true.

Today, Rupiah is telling the nation that there are no drugs in the hospitals. This is what his words mean. But according to him the shortage of drugs is artificial and caused by some simple administrative glitches. This is Rupiah’s way of saying there is a big problem.

Rupiah does not have the courage to stand and face the nation and tell us that there is a problem. To suggest that there is no problem with drugs in our country is to insult the plight of many of our people who today are suffering because they cannot access medicines in our hospitals.

What country does Rupiah live in where there is no problem of medicines for the vast majority of our people? Anyway, Rupiah is living a new-found life of opulence and luxury. Even when his knees need a bit of massaging, he flies to Cape Town to go and get treatment. So what does he know about the drug situation in our country?

This is what happens when leaders detach themselves from reality on the ground and surround themselves with yes-men who cannot tell them anything, let alone challenge them when they make ridiculous pronouncements.

Anyone who lives in this country would know that the health situation in general is dire but the drugs situation is even worse. Telling people that all is well, when nothing is, will not help Rupiah and his minions. They are simply annoying the people more. How do you tell someone who has lost a relative because there were no drugs and in some cases no medical personnel to attend to them that all is well?

Anyway, nothing that Rupiah does should surprise us. This is a man who saw pornography in a woman giving birth outside a hospital because of a crippling strike by medical personnel, which had engulfed our country. During that period instead of standing with the people and attending to the issue, Rupiah chose to go gallivanting on his favourite ‘presidential duty’.

Rupiah showed no leadership in resolving that particular issue, he was happy to be gallivanting when the medical sector was in a crisis. The only leadership that he showed was ordering the police to arrest Chansa Kabwela for trying to bring the plight of women, due to the strike, to the attention of the government.

Today, Rupiah can with a straight face stand up and tell the nation that whatever problems we are having with drugs are artificial. If it is such a simple problem why are we allowing our people to die for lack of drugs? What is Rupiah saying about his own government? We can only conclude that they are heartless and ruthless if they can allow artificial problems, or simple problems to derail our people’s ability to access treatment.

This shows the general mentality in Rupiah’s government. Rupiah and his minions, most of whom never expected to live the lives they are living today have cut themselves from reality. They have become so insensitive to the suffering of our people. As things stand today, we are living in the midst of some of the most debilitating urban conditions that our people have had to face.

The rainy season has left a lot of our people homeless. In some parts of Lusaka the little sanitation that was there has collapsed completely. And yet one of Rupiah’s ministers saw it fit to laugh at the need for people to have access to adequate water and sanitation, claiming that providing toilets for our people is utopian.

We should now understand that what justice deputy minister Todd Chilembo said at the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) was consistent with the way Rupiah and his minions view our people.

What Rupiah has said about medicines is not true and he should apologise to our people for taking their suffering for granted. Can Rupiah tell the nation which government hospital is very well stocked with all the basic drugs that are needed to take care of our people’s health?

Rupiah does not take his job seriously. He does not seem to realise that as far as the country goes there is no one above him. He is the one who is responsible for ensuring that everything is working well in the nation; that our people are well looked after but one always gets the feeling that Rupiah is in a trance.

He seems to think that it is somebody else’s job to deal with the problems that the nation is facing. The only time Rupiah seems comfortable with matters of the state is when he is boarding the presidential aircraft and travelling somewhere.

Rupiah is clueless when it comes to dealing with the complex problems of our country. This is why he and his minions have resorted to intimidation and threats whenever they are criticised. They don’t know how to address the challenges that our country faces. To them denial seems to be the only method they know. When Nawakwi told them that there was a crisis in the medical sector they threatened to reopen investigations against her which had been closed. When Rupiah addressed a clumsy press conference at which he sacked all the commanders of the defence forces, they became sensitive to any comment.

When General Malimba Masheke observed that Rupiah’s action gave the impression that there was a crisis in the nation, they threatened to arrest him. When Wynter Kabimba criticised Rupiah for his never-ending travelling they threatened to investigate him for something and arrest him. This is the only language they know. They cannot engage in any meaningful policy dialogue let alone, differences without threats. To them, being in power is equal to being right all the time.

They don’t seem to know that being in government is equal to undertaking to address the people’s problems, and for that to happen, there will always be criticism. If they are not ready for this, they are not fit to be a government.

Anyway, we will wait for Rupiah to tell us which government hospitals have no problem with drugs or to put it in his own words, which hospitals are experiencing artificial drug problems.

Labels: HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, PF-UPND, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 3:54 PM