Africa-Press – Zambia. says the major difference between UPND and PF is that PF is a pro-poor party. We in the PF don’t believe that a country should be run like a business because, PF presidential candidate Brian Mundubile has said.
The leader of opposition in Parliament said it is the poor Zambians, some of whom work in the mines that will be affected negatively if the country is run like a business as their plight will not be looked into by those in power.
Hon Mundubile said the moment you start running a country as a business, everything begins to go wrong. He said this when he and other PF MPs addressed the media today.
“You can’t run a country as a business. The moment you want to run a country as a business everything begins to go wrong because if you invest US$300 billion in Mopani, Mopani is a business yes but your first interest is to serve people on the Copperbelt, you save jobs” he said.
“Under the PF, I think the major difference between the UPND and the PF, the PF is a pro-poor party, a party that made decisions taking into consideration both the economic social consideration.”
The lawmaker stressed the need for government to move quickly on issues affecting Mopani and KCM. “…that is why we don’t agree with the President to run this country as a business. It is becoming difficult for him to see suffering of the people.” he said.
“We urge government to find US$300 million and invest in Mopani. We want to urge government that they must move in at KCM, sit down with KCM management and ensure that they resolve these matters.
The hopeful PF president said the party feels the pain of the people of the Copperbelt. He argued that President Hakainde Hichilema cannot avoid the question on Mopani and KCM.
“The person who asked the question asked about KCM… why is it that the President is remembering more of the Private entities than those around government?” He asked.
“But how can that be at the expense of people today?… most of these people survive on small salons, barbershops and welding workshops.”
And the Mporokoso Lawmaker expressed worry over the continued export of copper and other raw materials even when Zambia has opportunities to produce finished goods locally.
“DRC, Zambia and Zimbabwe were talking to agree so that one, Lithium from Zimbabwe, cobalt and copper from Zambia put together will be used to produce electric batteries and then we will employ our people and benefit greatly from these resources,” he said.
“So I think that the position that Zimbabwe has taken where they have stopped or restricted the export of lithium is a wise decision so that there can be value addition. We are grappling with unemployment as a country and I think any responsible government should do anything possible to try and increase the employment level and you do that by not exporting jobs.”
And the lawmaker warned Zambians that the “experts” who poorly advised government to privatize the mines several years ago are likely to come back to give a roadmap in the sector.
He stressed the need for Zambians to resist any temptation of having such people provide guidance on mining again. Hon Mundubile said some of the experts “might be alive” and holding governance positions.
“The brief background to our mines is that some 25/30 years ago, we had a group of Zambians that called themselves experts. These were people who seemed to have been very knowledgeable about the mining sector and they advised government that minerals: copper, cobalt…. Most of those mines will be depleted in 27 years,” he said.
“And that if we did not dispose off those mines quickly, one, the mines will be flooded and in no time we will lose those mines completely. So because of that guidance, because of that advice, we saw that the privatization of these mines was hurried and as a country we never really got the best out of these mines. Because after all, in 20 years’ time there will be no mines,” he said. Hon Mundubile said one could only question what could have led the said experts to mislead the government.
“So these so called experts, some of whom maybe alive today and serving in leadership positions misled government into privatizing the mines. We are over 25 years now since the mines were privatized. one could only question what could have led those experts to mislead the government resulting into government losing money, the people losing employment and we are where we are today because of those so called experts who might emerge again to give advice or a roadmap on how we proceed in the mining sector,” he said.
“So what remains is a warning to Zambians to resist any such temptations from such experts that misled government so many years ago and are likely to mislead us again. Now the concern that we raise is that we have quickly committed ourselves to supply this raw material to another country in order to make finished products and benefit greatly from this resource.”
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