Socialist Party spokesperson Frank Bwalya has called for the resignation of Zesco Limited Board Chairperson Vickson Ncube for allegedly attempting to offer himself as a sacrificial lamb to atone the lies of President Hakainde Hichilema on power loadshedding.
Ambassador Bwalya has described President Hichilema’s famous phrase ‘Bally will fix it’ as useless rhetoric.
Featuring on a radio programme at Hot FM on Tuesday, Mr Ncube took the blame for the loadshedding that the country is currently faced with.
Mr Ncube stated that if he had looked at the flow of the waters he would have been able to anticipate that when the country hits a certain time, the water levels will not be able to generate electricity to full capacity, adding that he would have also looked for solutions in the neighbouring countries with power as this would have enabled him to mobilise solutions to the potential problem.
“With Loadshedding there’s a failure on the natural part and the human part, on the natural part I can’t explain it, I will just mention that our hydrology is poor, our water reservoirs are also poor, no matter what we do, we have no control over the natural part, and on the human part we should have anticipated on that because in leadership there is anticipation of a problem so that when it comes, you are ready to face it, so, to that extent I shall take responsibility by stating that we failed the nation as ZESCO and as Board Chairman I take the full responsibility, I should have been better informed, and aware by measuring my hydrologies, looked at the projection and see at what point, we are going to hit a crisis, and I should have started fining for intervening measures so that by the time the crisis comes, am ready to meet it and I wasn’t,” he explained.
But Ambassador Bwalya said the manner in which Mr. Ncube handled the serious issue of Zesco loadshedding on Hot FM’s Hot Seat radio programme raised serious doubts about his approach to national challenges.
He said Mr. Ncube’s efforts to save President Hakainde Hichilema from the embarrassment of misleading the nation that his government had solved the problem of electricity deficit in Zambia is shameful.
“The attempt by Zesco Board Chairperson Mr. Vickson Ncube to save President Hakainde Hichilema the embarrassment of misleading the nation that his government had solved the problem of electricity deficit in Zambia is shameful. This act of trying to vicariously take the blame is a scandal of unprecedented proportion. As Socialist Party; we do not believe that President Hichilema’s claim that his government had ended load shedding within a few months of being in office was as a result of being fed wrong information as claimed by Mr. Ncube. This is because Mr. Hichilema has exhibited a scandalous propensity to claim easy victories in an attempt to divert public attention from his failure to deliver on all key campaign promises. President Hichilema has also exposed his habit of projecting himself as having the monopoly of wisdom in solving Zambian’s problems in line with the useless ‘Bally will fix it’ rhetoric. Against this background, we dispute the claim that the Zesco board chairperson misled Mr. Hichilema,” Ambassador Bwalya stated.
He charged that Mr. Hichilema was the chief priest of hypocrisy in Zambia.
The Socialist Party spokesperson continued:” Zambians know that when Mr. Hichilema issued the lie of having ended loadshedding, he made no reference to water levels at Kariba .We wish to remind Mr. Ncube that his job is not to launder Mr. Hichilema who many Zambians have come to know as the champion of fake promises and pronouncements. There are enough UPND praise singers to defend him. Therefore, we call upon Mr. Ncube to resign as Zesco Board Chairperson not for misleading the President but for attempting to offer himself as a sacrificial lamb to atone the lies of President Hichilema. Moreover, the individualistic manner in which Mr. Ncube handled the serious issue of Zesco loadshedding on Hot FM’s Hot Seat radio programme on Tuesday, 10th January, 2023, raised serious doubts about his approach to national challenges. He clearly showed that he also suffers from the same Hakainde syndrome.”
“Finally, we wish to remind Mr. Hichilema that when he was in the opposition, he attributed the challenges at Zesco including loadshedding to incompetence by Patriotic Front cadres who he falsely claimed were running Zesco instead of qualified people. But after he became President, many qualified engineers and top officials at Zesco were fired and replaced by individuals whose association with the UPND is well established. This scenario projects Mr. Hichilema as the chief priest of hypocrisy, “Ambassador Bwalya.
He won’t resign and he won’t be fired…read between the lines.
This country is strange, all omissions or offences must be dismissal or resignation. You mean the disciplinary code in our organizations and political parties in Zambia do not have other punishments like suspension, warning letters, withheld pay and others. Why should everything be dismissal or resignation. There are also administrative procedures please
A Board Chairperson is not subject to the organization’s disciplinary code or processes like “suspension, warning letters, withheld pay and others”, but answers to the appointing authority.
This country is strange because we don’t make people accountable for major omissions and offences, This is why we keep repeating them and end up pushing our development further up the road. Learn from countries like Singapore on how the got to where they are, zero tolerance for unethical behavior and mediocrity.
The Board Chair chap and his MD must resign or be fired
Actually ZESCO Board Chair must not resign alone but together with the ZESCO MD, Power Generation Director and other supporting staff who failed to offer professional advice to the board.
President HH should fire the big wigs at ZESCO. People cannot mislead the whole lot of the Presidency and get away with it. People will continue misleading him and in the end it is him who will lose our votes
Fire him and the energy minister pamozi. He has accepted responsibility for people who died because of load shedding. I say fire them and pursue criminal charges against them for creating this chaos.
You call call all you want, there’ll be no resignation and no firing.
That much we know.
What do you expect from a person who came on a platform of lies?The same lies have kept haunting his administration. A government built on lies will finally crumble. People will no longer brook his lies. He needs to tone down and be truthful, for once. Two years to go before he is kicked out.
These are the chaps who were on the board years ago enjoying allowances…this boy Father Bwalya was appointed by Sata to silence at the time he never objected or voice any concern at the impending energy crisis.