Africa-Press – Zambia. As National Democratic Congress, NDC, we wish to put it on record that the current upgrades and road construction leading to President HH’s house should be examined and stopped if he is using state money to do so. Our designated State house along Independence Avenue has the security features to accommodate a head of state, but we are now being told that security and even a police post being built are allegedly among the big costs that Community House is gobbling to make it a house worth that of a Republican President.
Over the past few years, we have known and seen wealthy Zambians that have gone as far as sponsor road constructions leading to their homes. There is still a Bulaya road existing now due to the works Mr. K. Bulaya did on the road. Whether the money was his or from proceeds of crime as some people will be quick to mention, the fact is that the money to do the road was taken from his personal money and he could have chosen to do anything with it, but he chose to construct a road that also benefited people that lived near him or used that road.
We have been told for years that President Hakainde Hichilema is a wealthy man. Of course we have not seen that money whether in theory or practice, it is just a rumour. To me, this is what the UPND and President HH have used for decades to practically get away with murder. President HH does not have charities or businesses which we can point at as being engaged in corporate social responsibilities or charity works that we can see that the money really exists. At the very most, we hear that President HH is a Director or shareholder in many companies and what percentage he has in those companies only devil knows.
By the same token, PRESIDENT HH has benefited more from the UPND financially, than the UPND has benefited from him. But because he has the pleasure and luck to lead a party full of praise singers that only jump and praise things that are told to them instead of applying logic, he continues to benefit more than he is giving in or out. People laughed at HH that he lost elections 5 times, but to him UPND has always been a business more than a political party. Before and during elections, many donors would give UPND loads of cash, money which is not even controlled by the Secretariat, but the President. So election in and election out, the UPND leadership got millions of money from donors. Sometimes that money would find itself in party programmes and sometimes it would find itself in other activities that the party leadership saw fit.
President HH further refused to publicly declare his assets. If you get on the Internet right now, you will find the monetary figures of what each millionaire or billionaire in Africa or worldwide is estimated to have. It should not be a secret. But we are told that HH is the richest man in the country and yet we do not know what he is worth. Therefore, for hon. Garry Nkombo to tell us that it is demeaning to question where the money to construct and upgrade the private residency of the President is coming from, is actually an insult to our collective intelligence as a people. He says that President HH is self sustaining. REALLY? Well, why did he not do all that work while he was still in opposition, since we are told that he is very rich. As NDC, we feel that President HH’s wealth is nothing but a rumour that is normally used to gain pecuniary advantage, and people are hoodwinked into believing that he has so much money and cannot be interested in using public resources, and yet the opposite is true.
This is a man they are further telling us that he is not drawing his salary and yet if that were true we would probably see him donate it to charity or his own party for party activities. Just the other time, one of the UPND officials was buried in a sack cloth in Siavonga and today the UPND members almost failed to bury their colleague in Kitwe until hon. Malanji donated a bus to help ferry mourners. All that in a party with a very wealthy President who is not getting his salary. Maybe he should turn his salary into a funeral fund that should be used to give UPND members decent burials.
Sadly, the rich man with short or penguin hands, once again lives to his true nature of not sharing whatever he has, whether much or little, but expects the public to judge him on the premises that he has too much money to ever think of getting money from the Zambians. Those are lies that the UPND and its members can feed on, for some of us, we can and will not base our analysis on things that we cannot see, but restrict ourselves to what we can see. And what we see is zero HH money for any project or charity works, but so much public funds now finding itself to even make Community House more comfortable and habitable for a head of state, and yet we are being told to look away as all this is happening.
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