MoH workers are deceiving Rupiah - Nawakwi

MoH workers are deceiving Rupiah - Nawakwi
By Chibaula Silwamba
Sun 10 Oct. 2010, 04:02 CAT

EDITH Nawakwi has observed that Ministry of Health civil servants are deceiving and de-campaigning President Rupiah Banda and the MMD by removing theatre equipment from UTH and installing it at newly upgraded Chawama hospital for a show-off.

Commenting on revelations that the government stripped the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) of its theatre equipment and took it to Chawama to deceive people that the Banda-administration was delivering development, thereby leaving operations at the country's largest health institution paralysed, Nawakwi said the civil servants deceived President Banda because they had studied him and knew that he could not cross-check that he was being hoodwinked because he was ever travelling abroad.

"Civil servants do not like the President, so they want to get him out of office in 2011 that is why they are engaged in this serious campaign to de-campaign him in places like Chawama. They want to deceive the President that he is working and he is so popular; he is building clinics and installing state-of-the-art equipment," said Nawakwi, the leader of the opposition Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD).

"The President was very happy when he was commissioning Chawama hospital, he was excited, saying, 'we are working'. All these government officials are not interested in the MMD."

She said the civil servants had set up President Banda against his own people.

"If the President wants to continue thinking that those of us who are talking are insulting him and sends the likes of MMD Lusaka Province youth chairperson Chris Chalwe on us, surely he wants to be deceived," Nawakwi said.

"You can only be in a crowd where you are wanted. He wants to be in a crowd of officials who don't have any regard for politicians. To move equipment from UTH to Chawama just for a show, shows how low the MMD can sink in terms of deceiving people."

Nawakwi said instead of misleading the people of Chawama, President Banda and his officials must have been magnanimous to tell them that after the upgrading of the hospital had finished, they would buy new equipment for the hospital.

She said there was no need to inconvenience patients at UTH.

"In fact, I heard this story from some doctors. How can any normal government do this? Really! It's just like the bucket story. A government that moves equipment from one clinic to another willy-nilly! There is no seriousness," Nawakwi said.

"This government has no direction and, according to them, when we tell them that they have no direction, they get so angry, they say that those are insults."

She mocked the Banda government for always asking to be congratulated even when things went wrong.

"When there are potholes on the road they want us to say, 'they are working.' When they move equipment from UTH to Chawama, please congratulate them, they are working. I want to thank the civil servants who are so clever in their de-campaigning of the MMD, please keep it up. The civil service should be congratulated for joining the campaign of getting the MMD out of government," Nawakwi said mockingly.

She said President Banda must know that the civil servants were de-campaigning him because when UTH gets its equipment from Chawama hospital, people of Chawama would be very upset with him and his government.

"He is being hoodwinked because they know that he doesn't even go to UTH to see the situation there because he is too busy with trips abroad. The civil servants have studied President Banda, he doesn't have time go to UTH," Nawakwi observed.

"I don't know what my brother at information minister of information and broadcasting services Lt Gen Ronnie Shikapwasha has to say about this. We are all in it as politicians, honestly if they can cheat the head of state at that level, what about those at lower level? I expect my brother the right reverend Ronnie Shikapwasha to advise the President accordingly, that this is an act of sabotage aimed at getting the MMD out of government.”

Nawakwi challenged the President to visit UTH and see the situation for himself.

But health minister Kapembwa Simbao has claimed that UTH had excess equipment, hence the decision to take the other equipment to the newly upgraded Chawama and Kanyama hospitals.