{"id":5408,"date":"2021-09-02T17:23:15","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T17:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc"},"modified":"2021-09-02T17:38:56","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T17:38:56","slug":"we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc","title":{"rendered":"We have Inherited \u201cEmpty\u201d Treasury, HH tells the BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Zambia<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>President Hakainde Hichilema has described as horrifying the extent of corruption and theft of public funds that took place under the PF administration.<\/p>\n

President Hichilema has told the BBC that he has inherited what he described as an empty treasury and that people are still trying to make last-minute movements of funds, which are unauthorised.<\/p>\n

He added that the debt situation had not been fully disclosed by the PF government. President Hichilema said the hole is much bigger than was expected and his administration has a huge task of correcting the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are still trying to make last-minute movements of funds, which are unauthorised, which are not theirs,\u201d President Hichilema said.<\/p>\n

In the BBC interview, the new president described the treasury as \u201cliterally empty\u201d. He added that the \u201chole is much bigger than we expected\u201d and the debt situation had not been \u201cfully disclosed\u201d by the former government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of damage, unfortunately,\u201d Mr Hichilema said.<\/p>\n

He added that his government would show \u201czero tolerance\u201d towards corruption, and would get to the bottom of what he called the illicit movement of funds very soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to pre-empt things but what we are picking [up] is horrifying,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll feel nobody can do a thing like that but it\u2019s being done. People have done it. They are still trying to do things now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Hichilema also said there were \u201ca lot of people who are not working, but are on the payroll\u201d of the government. Mr Hichilema said the government was committed to restoring its credibility among lenders.<\/p>\n

The government would enter into talks with China, which he was confident would \u201cunderstand that we\u2019ve inherited a very difficult situation\u201d, the president said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had known for a long time that there was non-full disclosure. So now that we\u2019re in, we are beginning to see that the debt numbers that were being talked about officially are not really the comprehensive numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have deals that were structured outside the normal channels; we\u2019re talking about debt that was accrued, acquired without parliament approval,\u201d Mr. Hichilema said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of our jobs right now is to dig into, trying to zero in on what the true debt is, both foreign and domestic debt. We are working through it and we\u2019ll get to the bottom of it soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zambia. President Hakainde Hichilema has described as horrifying the extent of corruption and theft of public funds that took place under the PF administration. President Hichilema has told the BBC that he has inherited what he described as an empty treasury and that people are still trying to make last-minute movements of funds, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":5407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8,12,16],"tags":[234,235,1895,2274,233],"class_list":["post-5408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-homepage-english","category-policy","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zambia","tag-president-hakainde-hichilema","tag-the-treasury","tag-zambia"],"yoast_head":"\nWe have Inherited \u201cEmpty\u201d Treasury, HH tells the BBC - Zambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"President Hakainde Hichilema has described as horrifying the extent of corruption and theft of public funds that took pl ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"We have Inherited \u201cEmpty\u201d Treasury, HH tells the BBC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"President Hakainde Hichilema has described as horrifying the extent of corruption and theft of public funds that took pl ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-09-02T17:23:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-09-02T17:38:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2021\/09\/img-61310bf6dfb47.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"533\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"We have Inherited \u201cEmpty\u201d Treasury, HH tells the BBC\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-09-02T17:23:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-09-02T17:38:56+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc\"},\"wordCount\":408,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2021\/09\/img-61310bf6dfb47.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Zambia\",\"President Hakainde Hichilema\",\"the treasury\",\"Zambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"homepage-english\",\"policy\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/we-have-inherited-empty-treasury-hh-tells-the-bbc\",\"name\":\"We have Inherited \u201cEmpty\u201d Treasury, HH tells the BBC - 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