Maravi

Wild utterances hurt government

Wild utterances hurt government
By Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Sun 04 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT

FINANCE minister Alexander Chikwanda has revealed that President Michael Sata is "annoyed by the indiscipline among ministers who make wild statements" adrift from the PF government's set policies.

Chikwanda said President Sata's recent realignment of ministries indicate his displeasure with the conduct of some of the ministers which ordinarily would have resulted in them being sacked.

Speaking when he officiated at the 21st anniversary annual ball for the Zambia Institute of Banking and Financial Services (ZIBFS), Chikwanda said the "indisciplined ministers" were eroding investor confidence in the country's economic trajectory.

"It is a matter of regret that some people may have made statements which are not policy," Chikwanda said.

"The President at the highest level has clarified that he would require his ministers and senior government officials not to make pronouncements which are at variance with the stated policy stances of government."

Global rating agency Fitch last week revised Zambia's rating outlook to negative from stable on Thursday, citing concerns about the direction of economic policy.

"The revision reflects the agency's concerns about some of the government's recent actions and announcements, which bring into question the direction of economic policy," Fitch stated.

Chikwanda said Cabinet ministers making policy statements which had not been endorsed by policy organs of government, especially Cabinet, were hurting the country's image.

"The President went further to say that this was the last time when he spoke on this issue, that he was warning the ministers not to make statements which might induce people to think that they were slippages or misdirection in our policy frame," he said.

"And the President, not amused by the indiscipline amongst ministers who make wild statements, even went to an extent of pleading with the ministers not to lead him into temptation."

Chikwanda revealed that the recent realignment of ministers and ministries was due to President Sata's frustration with some indisciplined ministers.

"And the President has lived to his word. Although he has not shown the door to any of the ministers, but he has made some adjustments which indicate his displeasure with some of my distinguished colleagues," Chikwanda said.

"So, there is no doubt that Zambia means well, and investments are not going down."

President Sata last week reshuffled his Cabinet in a move seen to placate investors and to streamline economic policy.

Last month, Chishimba Kambwili, who had lambasted Chinese and Indian economic interests and upset the Chinese Ambassador, among others, was made sport minister only.

The labour portfolio is now the responsibility of the Ministry of Information.

Kambwili was foreign affairs minister in Sata's inaugural cabinet but he only lasted four months.

On January 12, following complaints from diplomats about his crude language and lack of diplomatic etiquette, Kambwili was transferred to the realigned Ministry of Labour, Sports, Youth and Child Development.

Despite the PF government stating that it would not reintroduce the 25 per cent windfall tax on base metals, Wylbur Simuusa and Robert Sichinga have on a number of occasions been quoted saying the populist tax regime had not been shelved permanently.

Meeting Rio Tinto officials on the sidelines of a mining conference in Cape Town last month, Simuusa was quoted by the Zambian High Commissioner in South Africa that Zambia may bring back a mining windfall tax if copper prices hit US$10,000 per tonne.

Simuusa has since lost the mines portfolio as he is minister in-charge of lands, natural resources and environmental protection.

On February 3, commerce minister Sichinga claimed that MMD printed K3 trillion fake notes in China prior to last year's election.

The MMD has since launched a libel suit against him. Chikwanda and the Bank of Zambia disavowed his claims.

The Chinese Embassy has demanded that Sichinga provide proof or own up.

And Chikwanda said the current underdevelopment Zambia and other African countries were experiencing was due to intellectual impoverishment.

"Money is the consequence of ideas and those ideas have to be bankable, viable and need to have rationality content and quite often our development has stagnated and in some cases even regressed, not because we don't have resources," said Chikwanda.

"Our stagnation or regression in Zambia and in the rest of Africa essentially has its origins in moral intellectual bankruptcy. So, it is in that context that I applaud the efforts of the institute with a dialogue in which way we can reinforce you. The economy of Zambia will not move until we have enough reservoirs of skills. We cannot drift away from the essence of arming ourselves with skills and high levels of knowledge. This is at the core of any country's development."

Labels: MICHAEL SATA, MINISTERS

posted by MrK @ 6:21 PM