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(STICKY) No one can be jealous of Rupiah - Nawakwi

No one can be jealous of Rupiah - Nawakwi
By Patson Chilemba
Wed 29 Dec. 2010, 04:01 CAT

NO one can be jealous of Rupiah Banda, says Edith Nawakwi. Reacting to information minister Ronnie Shikapwasha assertions that she was jealous of President Banda’s successes because she expected to be part of it, Nawakwi, who is FDD president, wondered how she could be jealous of a government that presided over suffering.

“No one can be jealous of Rupiah Banda as President of this Republic when there is so much carnage on the roads…I do not expect this government to go to Kanyama and see the squalor and the breeding of houseflies, the cholera. I do not expect them to go to George Compound and see how water logged those pit-latrines are, where people are getting dirty water,” she said.

Nawakwi (right) said what could be seen as success under President Banda was not started by him. She said no one in President Banda’s government was ever seen rescheduling the county’s debt in Paris.

“They are boasting of US $2 billion reserves. How can any government boast of reserves when their people are starving? It is like having a granary of food which is full and your children are starving and you tell them that ‘I am rich’,” Nawakwi said.

“People at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) have no access to the renal unit because they can’t afford the cost of K2 million, and this government is feeding on reserves. Which reserves are they talking about which are only meant to support the mining sector because it keeps their imports? When they want their money they get it?”

Nawakwi said it was a fallacy for the government to claim that President Banda was building schools because the normal government procedures dictated that it took almost a year to process tender permission to construct a school.

“But these facilities are already at completion level. Only someone who doesn’t have eyes can be cheated that this is their work. This is work that has been going on for maybe four, five years after the HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative) completion point and debt write-off,” Nawakwi said.

“That is what you see. It is not their plan. We must now demand to begin to see their plan. We want to see good housing for the people in the compounds. We want to see silos so that our maize is not soaked.”

Nawakwi said she did not consider a ministerial position as a job. She said she left the civil service to join hands in removing UNIP from power.

Nawakwi said in 2001 she left the comfort of being a minister to ensure that the Republican Constitution was not annihilated when Frederick Chiluba wanted to go for a third term.

She said the MMD should be grateful because for the sake of peace and stability she chose to support them in the 2008 presidential elections.

“This is a government full of people who say that they are in MMD simply because of the politics of benefit. Some of us are not in that category, and will never be, and have no need for it,” Nawakwi said.

She said there was nothing positive those in government did because they refused to take advice, saying that was why some chose to keep quiet.

“As such President Banda is missing out on very important valuable advice because around him, he is literally on a noose. He can’t even talk to Grey Zulu…they are so bent on politics of benefit, they forget to see reality,” Nawakwi said.

She insisted that the country should start trading in hard currency because the exchange rate in the last 20 years had been tailor made to support the mining industry.

Nawakwi likened the mining companies to tourists whose activity had failed to add tangible value to Zambians.

She said the issues she raised in the health sector and Finance Bank needed serious intellectual minds and not comedians like Shikapwasha.

“He is spokesperson of government. He should address this issue. Can we dollarise the economy which has been subsiding the mines because if the mines start paying in hard currency for goods and services supplied to this country, which goods are imported by small scale traders they have to suffer the consequences of a duel exchange rate?” said Nawakwi.

Shikapwasha was quoted in yesterday’s edition of the state-owned and government-controlled Times of Zambia saying Nawakwi was jealous of President Banda’s achievements.

Shikapwasha was responding to Nawakwi’s observation that President Banda’s government had underperformed and failed to deliver.

Labels: EDITH NAWAKWI, FINANCE BANK, MINING, POVERTY, RONNIE SHIKAPWASHA, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 5:13 PM