Wynter Called Kenneth Kaunda a Divisive Hypocrite!

It is strange today how first republican president Kenneth Kaunda is finding it warm to sit among the PF cadres, like Wynter Kabimba. And I do not even know where people like Kabimba are getting the conscious to sing praises about KK as a founding father.

Here is what Kabimba said about Kaunda in 2010 (Kaunda is a hypocrite, divisive failure – Kabimba, Mon 04 Jan. 2010, By George Chellah)

PATRIOTIC Front (PF) Secretary General Wynter Kabimba has described Dr Kenneth Kaunda as a hypocrite and divisive failure who is acting for self-preservation.

Commenting on Dr Kaunda's attack on former defence minister George Mpombo that he has been barking like anything at President Rupiah Banda, Kabimba said there was no former head of state within the SADC region that has been able to act in such a format of character mutation as Dr Kaunda has been doing. He said one of the things that had been very clear after Dr Kaunda left office was that he had not emulated his contemporaries in the region on the role of former heads of state.

He said Dr Kaunda needed to learn from his colleagues on how they stabilised their countries in the transition from one party state to democracy or multi-partyism.

"I have in mind people like the late Julius Nyerere who was a very stabilising factor in Tanzania, Léopold Senghor of Senegal, the recent icon Nelson Mandela, the man Kaunda fought for him to be liberated and how he has been a stabilising factor in South Africa after he left office and Sir Ketumile Masire of Botswana," Kabimba said. "But Kaunda has been very divisive.

He has played a role of a divider rather than a uniting factor amongst Zambians. For him to refer to Mpombo as a person who has been barking like anything and in the same statement call upon Zambians to live under the banner of One Zambia One Nation is hypocritical."

Kabimba said by virtue of coming out the way he did against Mpombo, Dr Kaunda had already taken a side.

"He is not reconciling Rupiah and Mpombo. Look at Kaunda's role, how he has killed UNIP, the party he led for a long time. It's because of him having played a divisive role. He left UNIP and anointed the late Kebby Musokotwane as president. After a couple of years because of his insatiable appetite for power, he went back to UNIP and overthrew the man he anointed - Kebby Musokotwane," Kabimba said. "And UNIP has gone into extinction ever since. Finally, he anoints his son Tilyenji as president of UNIP. Another dividing factor in that party. Now we hear that the ka son is in Matero in sandals trying to organise the party, what UNIP is in Matero now for him to mobilise?"

Wynter Kabimba

Kabimba said Dr Kaunda's divisive tendencies could be traced way back to the early 1990s.
"In 1996, he supported the late Dean Mung'omba against Chiluba, in 2001 he shifted his support to the late Anderson Mazoka against Levy Mwanawasa. In fact, his preferences were Mazoka, Nevers Mumba and his son Tilyenji. In 2006 he shifted again…(he supported Hakainde Hichilema) two years down the line after Levy's death he shifted his support to Rupiah," Kabimba said.

"But even as he shifted his support to Rupiah on one hand, on the other hand he attempted to broker an alliance between UPND and PF against Rupiah the person he has supported. Maybe let me explain this, one of the reasons why the alliance between PF and UPND could not hold then was because of the dividing role Kaunda played.

"The reason why the current pact is holding now is because we have made it very clear that we don't want him to play a role. The man is unpredictable and he doesn't mean well. He is acting for self-preservation. I have no doubt that when the PF-UPND pact forms the next government, Kaunda will shift again and support the PF-UPND government."

Kabimba said Dr Kaunda had even failed to run the Kenneth Kaunda Foundation effectively.

"His AIDS foundation is now going into extinction despite the goodwill and huge amounts of investment money into it. All this is because the man has been divorced from this society. Kaunda is no longer perceived in that dimension uniting factor by a larger part of society. No wonder whatever he has tried has failed," Kabimba said. "Mandela is running various foundations including the Mandela foundation, which is internationally recognised.

Nyerere was chairman of the South-to-South Commission, which was recognised internationally up to the time of his death. Kaunda doesn't have any internationally recognised foundation because he has failed to unite the country he led for many years."

Kabimba said there was no former head of state within the region that had been able to act in such a format of character mutation as Dr Kaunda has been doing.

"That's why he can only play a role of Santa at Arcades giving gifts to children because adults no longer trust him.

The man has rendered himself irrelevant to the Zambian people. Kaunda should exercise deep introspection in the few years remaining in his life on earth to do just one act that he will be remembered for by the people of Zambia," Kabimba said.

"The man has no record. That's why he has not been able to write his memoirs because there is nothing good to write about Kaunda. He has failed to write his memoirs. Even those tasked to write can't proceed to do the job because there is nothing good to write about the man. He announced publicly that he was tasking Mark Chona and Aaron Milner to do his memoirs but there is nothing."

Chimbwi No Plan (CNP) Now A Reality In PF

Nothing can prepare the minds of Zambians to accept that the government means well, unless the high cost of living that has been set in motion with the removal of fuel and maize subsidies does not affect the size of their nshima (staple maize pulp Zambians eat with relish) on the table.

By Ngwende Nyalubinge

Sata knows that his position on withdraw of subsidies is not just unpopular but seriously lacks analysis depth among sensible people. This is why instead of facing the citizens himself, he gets ZNBC's Misheck Moyo, Queen Chungu and some impoverished Daily Mail and Times of Zambia reporters to go into compounds to start giving a government perspective of subsidies to residents who do not even know the meaning of subsidy, then take the influenced comments or reactions, which obviously Sata wants to hear, and tell the whole nation that common people in the compound have accepted the removal subsidies.

We can accept the subsidies withdraw from one maxim," a spoon fed man will one day demand your finger".

Even with that maxim, it will be difficult for Sata and his PF stooges to use the public media to manufacture consent so that people can accept this daft-thought-out economic miscalculation. Nothing can prepare the minds of Zambians to accept that the government means well, unless the high cost of living that has been set in motion with the removal of fuel and maize subsidies does not affect the size of their nshima (staple maize pulp Zambians eat with relish) on the table.

Blue in red band is expenditure in MMD, Green with red band is PF now

And when we look deep in the Zambia economic environment you see that it is the person who is feeding us who is finishing the porridge on the plate and demanding our finger. There is abundant lack of fiscal discipline on the part of the Patriotic Front government, in particular President MICHAEL CHILUFYA SATA. He has failed to measure the water in the pot according to the maize meal in the pack, or he has no idea of how to cut the cloth to the right size. The salaries of his cabinet and their deputies has double from K8 billion per year in the previous government to over K15 billion. On top of that Sata is mockingly asking poor Zambians to sacrifice, but cannot hint on cutting his salary and that of his ministers. Selfish leaders!

On top this greedy, here are some areas showing lack of planning by Sata:

1. Sata's political greedy and focus to have parliamentary seats he did not win in the 2011 elections, he is now using our porridge to entice hungry opposition MPs thereby creating by-elections that are costly. He has even gone to take away even the stocks in our cupboard which is feeding to his 88 deputy ministers.

2. We need to expand our education infrastructure at tertiary level in order to open up more spaces for those left out. But in the face of limited resources, Zambia cannot afford to set on constructing three universities at a goal. It needs to open up roads to rural areas, but the kilometres that are supposed to be done should be limited to the finances budgeted for and provided in budget support. Also the cost efficiency of doing these roads must be there so we do not just look at the political benefit of showing off black asphalt to villagers who have not seen this pavement in their life time or since Independence, while the economic benefits may not even pay back the cost of the road in the next 50 years and by then the tar road, probably named after Sata’s wife, could have been eaten away, rutted with potholes.

3. We need to be efficient in the delivery of services, make the process of our workers and those who want to do business easily access administrative procedures. We have not been doing well in this area, but we cannot roll out many districts at one time oblivious of the costs of developing infrastructure for these new administrative centres and paying the establishment. We all know and the politicians have agreed that district commissioners are irrelevant, PF has not just maintained these good for nothing mouths but has gone to increase them without any consideration whether they were in the national budget or not. We have 20 or more new districts, some of them just less than 7 kilometres within Lusaka.

4. It must be said that there a lot of ministerial travels abroad, some which are not necessary. Hardly a week passes without three to four ministers being on a silver ndeke out with a huge delegation trotting the globe. Some of these trips, albeit costly, are not even adding any value to the country's immediate economic needs or social capital in relation to countries being visited. If a budget of one of such trips was floated for young entrepreneurs to compete for using viable proposals for businesses that could create wealth and jobs, today we would have been counting reduced poverty problems and dependent youths in the country. One such useless travel is the use of scarce public resources to pay for Geoffrey Mwamba (Defence Minister) and a crew of over a dozen babies in combat to go and watch military toys in Turkey?

A government with fiscal discipline would choose to reduce these trips, but it is one way to take away more porridge from our plate and feed the political leadership.

When people talked of Sata being a CNP, many reasonable Zambians thought it was just political malice. However, the close to 20 months of the Patriotic Front in government with Sata, not a rail sweeper, but in the driving seat has proved true Hakainde Hichilema’s CNP (Chimbwi No Plan) theory.

NN

Only 20 months with Sata has already exhausted our patience

Sata has made not only bad, but very costly, mistakes that do not make any economic sense and to a greater extent are attacks on democracy.

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Zambians are very patient people when it comes to giving space to their political leadership in government. They gave Kaunda and UNIP 27 years to annoy them to the limit while they allowed three presidents in 20 years under MMD to push their luck too far. But signs are that two decades will not happen to allow political mismanagement of the country by Sata and the Patriotic Front.

We have only been here for 20 months with Patriotic Front and Sata, and he is already exhausting our patience as a people for his government to continue discharging the affairs of the country.

Students at the major state universities, UNZA, Copperbelt and Mulungushi, last week had lessons disrupted in demonstration of the recent decision by Sata’s regime to remove subsidies on fuel and maize grain. 

 The removal of subsidies have sent costs of transport and the staple maize meal skyrocketing. It is now costing K250, half the salary of a shopkeeper to travel from Zambezi in the North Western province to the capital Lusaka. Mealie meal that was only costing between K45 and K50 twenty months ago is now costing between K70 and K80.

May 1 Day Speech Exposes Sata’s Hypocrisy

Choosing to condemn others for exactly the same actions that he perpetuated shows how dishonest on bigger national issues has ceased to be a reproach to Sata, just as failing to be honest about his actions on smaller things is no longer dishonorable to him

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

The condemnation of opposition leaders, Nevers Mumba for MMD and UPND’s Hakainde Hichilema, by President Michael Sata is a grand standing of hypocrisy.

“And today Mr Nevers Mumba is not here. Mr HH is not here because they are ashamed they have been preaching Sata is dying...does a dying man look like me? ...and if you want to aspire to lead this country, come here because all you workers we understand your difficulties whether you have nice uniforms in the army, whether you have nice uniforms in the police there are still other difficulties, accommodation and transport and a number of things.

So if you are leaders and you are aspiring to lead the people of Zambia come here and celebrate with them…including my boys who are sitting in the trees,” Sata said.

First we all know that Sata refused to participate in all government functions for ten years he was canvassing for sympathy from Zambian voters for presidency. He said all bad things about late President Levy Mwanawasa’s government and gave clumsy reasons for his boycotts.  

Sata flanked by labour minister Shamenda shake hands with worker on May 1

Today Sata stands and opens his mouth in a usual style trying to accuse others of being irresponsible leaders who have no interest in the plight of workers. Sata did not attend Labour Day celebrations for ten years. So for decade Sata did not celebrate with workers.  He should not blame the actions of the opposition leaders; he must go to the podium during national functions to apologise to the country for authoring rancorous politics.

In fact it is silly for the President to ask the opposition leadership to celebrate with the workers publicly so that they can understand the many difficulties that these workers go through. He seems to be deliberately forgetting that it is the same government that dismisses workers from the public institutions when they interact with opposition leaders. Didn’t this very government dismiss Evelyn Hone College head of journalism studies Clayson Hamasaka when opposition UNPD leader Hakainde Hichilema walked to Evelyn Hone to check on the poor sanitation at the institution in the wake of a dysentery outbreak?

Apart from the Evelyn Hone cruelty, it is the same Sata who has failed to condemn his Foreign Affairs deputy minister Gabriel Namulambe for banishing parents who belong to opposition parties from PTAs (Parent Teachers Associations) in his constituency. Sata also failed to condemn his police when it started harassing and arresting opposition MMD and UPND leaders for taking a walk in public markets and visiting chiefs. By keeping quite over these blatant abuses, it means Sata is explicitly authorising this heavy handedness. Why then should the same Sata today think that opposition leaders must celebrate with the same workers he has chosen to isolate from those in opposition?

Choosing to condemn others for exactly the same actions that he perpetuated shows how dishonest on bigger national issues has ceased to be a reproach to Sata, just as failing to be honest about his actions on smaller things is no longer dishonourable to him. We ask Sata to take stock of his wholesale past and present political rancour and be honest with himself if what he portrayed while in opposition and is now promoting as head of state can inspire other political stakeholders to feel part and parcel of national events. Maybe it is this lack of integrity that he avoids to hold a press conference, fearing he would have a lot of explanations to make about his inconsistent character.

It must be emphasise here that no matter how he runs a smear campaign against opposition leaders, choosing to ignorance to his own intolerance planted in our political culture, he will not hide away from embarrassment of being the biggest laughing stock, not from the public, but the bible he holds, which teaches that do unto others as you would love them do unto you.

We also find it shocking, if not absurd, for Sata to think that opposition leaders can have any meaningful interaction and get to understand the difficulties the workers are facing when he knows that such events are meant for his Stand-up Comedy while those who represent workers foolishly applaud him. Sadly, workers are denied any chance to speak freely about the problems they face in different work places. If he truly means well that opposition leaders must interact with public workers to understand their plight, Sata must allow mature politics that will not intimidate bosses of institutions who give audience to opposition leaders.

While Zambia Federation of Employees President Joyce Nonde in an insignificant way tried to remind Sata of his deficiencies that he also stayed away from national functions like Labour Day, she failed to blame his actions as the cause of the opposition leaders reaction. She needed to pick up courage and ask Sata to unequivocally apologise for his actions.

We also find it awful for public media (ZNBC, Daily Mail and Times of Zambia) alongside the private Post Newspaper to fail to help us get the answers from President Sata why he chooses to condemn opposition leaders over the same actions he found right in the ten years by shunning public events.

Their positions to be too hard on the opposition, representing them to be irresponsible while making Sata look as an angel when his rancorous actions are well documented and known will just work to annoy Zambians more for unfairness.  Remember Zambians love justice and would want to stand and protect the weak from the powerful. The day of reckoning will surely come.

NN