Zambians now realise they made mistake voting UPND – Mundubile

WE see them rushing to make decisions, to give concessions in the mining sector as long as those concessions will benefit the foreigners, opposition PF has accused UPND government.

Mporokoso PF member of parliament Brian Mundubile says “I am very sure that the Zambian people now realise that they made a mistake to vote the new dawn government into power. Because then you have a government in power that does not care about the suffering of its own local people”.

Last Friday, PF MPs addressed the media at Parliament where they castigated the government over what they termed as declining fortunes in the mining sector.

Leader of the opposition in Parliament, Mundubile insinuated that President Hakainde Hichilema was being misinformed about the plight of the people on the Copperbelt who are grappling with high cost of living as a result of the state of the mines.

Mundubile said if the President was well informed about what is happening on the Copperbelt, he would have delayed making “some of these announcements on Zambia National Provident Fund, NAPSA, which are done incorrectly.”

The Mporokoso lawmaker expressed shock at government’s position that investing in Mopani, a mining firm which needs approximately $3 million is not priority.

Mundubile charged that the government will do anything to not invest into mines to push a narrative that Zambians cannot run the sector.

“You would love to know that the economy on the Copperbelt is a cash economy, you have to have the money. The source of that money is actually the mines. People on the Copperbelt are going through unspeakable misery. [But] government said investing in Mopani is not priority. This is very shocking to us because we know that investing $3 million in Mopani was going to resolve a number of issues on the Copperbelt. Our statement therefore is, if investing in Mopani is not priority, certainly alleviating the challenges people are facing on the Copperbelt is priority to government. So if government has other means of resolving the declining economic fortunes on the Copperbelt, let them inform the people on the Copperbelt and the nation what those measures will be,” he said. “It is very irresponsible of government to come out with that reaction that they cannot invest in Mopani and that that is not priority. Then the question is, what then is priority to the new dawn government if the suffering of the poor people of Zambia is not priority? We see them rushing to make decisions, to give concessions in the mining sector, as long as those concessions will benefit the foreigners, the rich people. They are in a hurry to offer those concessions. If it is something to do with the disposal of shares, shares owned by the Zambian people themselves…..then that is priority for the government. We want to call upon the President of this Republic, President Hakainde Hichilema to rethink his position on Mopani. Let the President rethink his position on KCM. And in rethinking the positions on those two mines, let him have the people on the Copperbelt, the suffering of the people on his mind. I am very sure that if the President is properly informed about what is happening on the Copperbelt, and the suffering the people are going through on the Copperbelt, he will not allow his ministers to give the responses they are giving on the floor of the House when it comes to those two mines.”

Mundubile said if the President was well informed he would have given priority to what is happening on the Copperbelt.

“For some reason or the other, the President is not properly informed about what is happening on the Copperbelt. Because a sitting President voted for by the Zambian people, 2.8 million Zambians to wake up to come and vote for him, you can only put Zambians as a priority. Neglecting the people on the Copperbelt in the manner the UPND is doing may be on account of the President not receiving correct information. But if at all he has received the correct information and he has continued to ignore the people on the Copperbelt, then I am very sure that the Zambian people now realise that they made a mistake to vote the new dawn government into power. Because then you have a government in power that does not care about the suffering of its own local people,” he said.

Mundubile bemoaned the manner in which officials have handled issues surrounding questions PF MPs raised in parliament regarding Article 210 of the Constitution on disposal of state asset.

“Now colleagues you remember that last week I asked a question to the Vice-President. We wanted to know what the position of government was in view of Article 210 on disposal of state asset. And the Vice-President promised that she will come to parliament to cause a ministerial statement on the floor of the House….This is a week later, we are still waiting. Conveniently, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Mines and everyone else decided to issue a statement instead of coming on the floor of the House, they went outside to issue a statement,” he said. “They went to issue a statement outside parliament when we the members of parliament were waiting in parliament. They have denied members of parliament an opportunity to ask difficult questions regarding this particular transaction, this suspicious transaction of transfer of shares. You have heard maybe two, three, four, five different versions regarding that particular transaction. It’s typical the UPND government. You remember not very long ago, when we raised issues regarding the auditing of defence forces and intelligence agencies, there were three different statements from three Cabinet ministers sitting in the same Cabinet. So sometimes you tend to wonder, are they members of the same Cabinet? Do they sit in the same cabinet meetings?”

Mundubile charged that there was something wrong in the ZCCM-IH and First Quantum Mines transaction.

He wondered why it took Cabinet ministers to issues statements on the same when ZCCM-IH has a public relations team.

“Why did the Minister of Finance think his statement alone could not be believed? He has to go to the Minister of Mines? Why did he have to invite the third person to come and make the same statement if indeed the transaction was as innocent as they want to make it seem? So colleagues I think that we are at a time when we have to remind ourselves of what has happened in our mining sector. If you do and you properly interrogate the transactions that have happened in the mining sector for the past 20, 25 years, it will begin to form a pattern. You will begin to understand that we may just be sliding back into the 1990s when our mines were being privatised slowly,” he said. “You must understand that a brief genesis on privatisation in view of Kansanshi Mines was that, for instance, ZCCM was sold in 1998 for the total price of $627 million. By that time, the exchange experts told the citizens that the lifespan of the mine in Zambia was just 20 years. We have this appetite of hiring experts who come to tell us very good stories. They are marketed by our leaders. Our leaders will market these experts so that the citizens can believe every story that comes from the experts.”

Mundubile said the same people who participated in the mines years back are the same people influencing some decisions being made in the sector.

“It is 25 years now, these mines are still going. Meaning that in coming up with the considerations for these mines, we took into consideration only 20 years. But this is 25 years and we are still going. And it was estimated that about $1.1 billion worth of copper was actually stolen from Zambian people on account of this misinformation. So we want you Zambians to pay attention to the activities or the happenings in the mining sector,” he said. “For some of us, who are a little older than most of you, we have been there before. These good stories we have heard them before and we can almost predict where we are going. You have similar circumstances and same actors. The players are the same. Very little has changed. Remember we are talking about the mining sector. If you look at the owners of these mining houses that are participating in these activities, they are the same as those that were there some 30 years ago. If you look at the experts that were advisers, some of whom are leaders today, they are the same. So the actors are the same, the circumstance is similar, so most likely we may end up with the same result.”

Mundubile said PF has information around Kansanshi Mines that it is worth approximately $8 billion.

“We would like to know that value that was placed on the ZCCM-IH shares for that particular transaction. We also want to know the company that was entrusted to carry out the evaluation of both the value of Kansanshi Mine as it stands now…what will happen to the criminal matters that ZCCM-IH took to court? Some of us have been there before, expert explanation, but in the end it was methodical, meticulous corruption. So we want everybody to be alert with what is happening now,” said Mundubile. “People will sing about corruption all they want, for us we have redefined corruption. We want to look beyond where ACC looks. So these transactions involving FQM and Kansanshi we have put a red flag…”