SELLING MAIZE RESERVES WAS RECKLESS - KALABA
PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema should apologise to Zambians for condemning them to hunger and poverty by selling the 1.5 million metric tonnes reserve maize stocks causing food shortages and looming hunger, Harry Kalaba has demanded.
Mr Kalaba, the president of Citizens First says President Hichilema should stop playing the victim by parading himself before international media houses and begging for help after ignoring advise from experts and the opposition against selling and emptying maize reserves.
“President Hichilema should stop mourning because he mismanaged the food issue. President Hichilema ignored advice against selling the 1.5 million metric tonnes of the maize reserves he inherited from his predecessor.
You sold the maize, you must stop lying and mourning. It is not the drought that is putting six million Zambians at risk of starvation and poverty.
It is you President Hichilema who is pushing Zambians into poverty. If you did not sell the reserve maize, the story would be different,” Mr Kalaba said.
He said sadly; “We must buy back the maize expensively, the same maize we sold cheaply just because one man ignored advice. President Hichilema has failed and he must resign as our chairman (for the United Kwacha Alliance) Sakwiba Sikota SC, has continued to demand”
Mr Kalaba said the biggest problem for Zambia was that it had acquired for itself a President in the name of Mr Hichilema with an attitude of “I know it all” whose cure he said was unknown apart from voting him out in 2026.
And Mr Kalaba, a member of the United Kwacha Alliance (UKA) has come to the defence of the Mambilima Legislator Jean Chisenga who is facing possible punishment by Speaker of the National Assembly Nelly Mutti for calling out President Hichilema as liar.
“Ms Chisenga has privileges and her calling President Hichilema a liar should not be punishable because that is what President Hichilema is. She is simply echoing what many Zambians feel about him because he has told so many lies to Zambians,” Mr Kalaba said.
Meanwhile, Mr Kalaba has warned that President Hichilema and any government officials that have participated in the offloading or sale of 51 percent shares in Zambia´s mining company Mopani Copper Mines to the Dubaibased company, International Resource Holdings (IRH) shall face legal action in future for breaking the law.
“The law says when you are selling a state asset beyond a certain price, two thirds of Parliament must approve the sale and, in this case, not only was parliament not involved but the company that bought the company did not even participate in the deal,” said Mr Kalaba.
Mr Kalaba said although Presidents did not sign sale deals, anyone who had signed the deal to sell 51 percent shares in Mopani against the Constitution shall be made to account once Mr Hichilema was no longer President.
“In a good month, Mopani can generate US$300 million from its operations,” Mr Kalaba said.
“How then do we celebrate a cash injection of US$40 million from a company that was handpicked and never participated in the bidding process?” Mr Kalaba wondered.