HOTEL SALE WAS CRIMINAL’

...Iam ready to go to court to testify

FORMER Finance Minister, Edith Nawakwi has insisted that UPND president, Hakainde Hichilema’s conduct amounts to criminality and she is ready to testify in court.

And Government must investigate the sale of state-owned companies during the MMD administration because they did not meet acceptable benchmarks of fair play, says the Young African Leaders Initiative president Andrew Ntewewe.

In a radio interview on 5FM’s Burning Issue, Ms Nawakwi who served in various portfolios in the MMD government said if Mr Hichilema managed to dubiously acquire his wealth when one Minister was “sleeping,” what would happen when the whole country goes to sleep at night.

The FDD wondered what will happen to the country’s public asserts if Mr Hichilema, is given the mandate to rule the country.

She said if government had the tools to carry out the privatisation process, they would not have hired Mr Hichilema who ended up benefitting from the process.

“HH should not depart from real issues by his continued cyber bullying and doing all sorts of memes on his Facebook pages because what he did amounts to theft of public assets. He was like a baboon in a maize  field and he is a shame to his profession,” said Ms Nawakwi.

She stated that at no point did it occur to her that Mr Hichilema was a confidence trickster when he was engaged by government to be a consultant during the privatisation process.

“You can’t call yourself smart because people you are advising didn’t understand the document you are advising then on. Little did I know that when he was talking about Sun Intercontinental Hotel, he was talking about himself and he should explain what he did to have shares in the hotel and how much money he paid,” she said.

And Ms Nawakwi said Mr Hichilema should not accuse people of corruption when he himself is not clean.

“If you accuse others of being corrupt, be clean yourself! What HH did during privatisation is criminal and also amounts to trickery. It doesn’t matter how much he bullies me on social media and instead of using his social platforms correctly, he is teaching his youthful followers how to insult their mothers,” she added.

Mr Ntewewe at a media briefing yesterday said Government must specifically investigate the sale of the Inter-Continental Hotel and Rainbow Lodge in Livingstone which eventually ended up under the ownership of Mr Hichilema.

He said YALI would petition the Chief Justice and other relevant wings of the government to set up a commission of inquiry into the privatisation and sale of state-owned enterprises.

Mr Ntewewe said the inquiry should look into the ethical, moral and fiduciary conduct of the key players in the privatisation programme.

Meanwhile, United Liberal Party leader Sakwiba Sikota said only a commission of inquiry would put the matter to rest. – SmartEagles.