“Time and again, the UPND has gone on a campaign drive to preach and promote, hate, violence, and tribalism. They have encouraged their supporters in their strongholds to blatantly demean and insults the head of state and this show of disrespect was exampled by their leader HH who arrogantly tried to block the presidential motorcade, an act that is treasonous in many if not all countries”

By Dr. Joze Manda

For many years a myriad of opposition political parties in Zambia have seemingly faced some special hurdles in their quest to win elections and take hold of the reins of power.
Indeed, the number of electoral alternations – whereby a ruling party loses an election and the opposition becomes the new ruling elite – has been increasing in Africa, but this can not be said for Zambia, as the main opposition, the UPND is more concerned at character assassination and propaganda than offering alternative views and solutions to many challenges that Zambia is facing.

The biggest problem with UPND is that it thrives on propaganda and promotes negativity on the economic performance of the country instead of building the same country they wish to govern. UPND has the tendency of painting Zambia black to the outside world with the misconception hope of receiving sympathy, which might work to their advantage.
Time and again, the UPND has gone on campaign drive to preach and promote, hate, violence and tribalism. They have encouraged their supporters in their strongholds to blatantly demean and insults the head of state and this show of disrespect was exampled by their leader HH who arrogantly tried to block the presidential motor cade, an act that is treasonous in many if not all countries.

In the recent past, we have heard how HH and his supporters have gone full throttle on social media claiming they are popular and they will win the elections in 2021 at all costs and they lose, then it means elections have been rigged, what kind of thinking is this? HH and his supports must be reminded that Zambia is democratic country and elections results must be accepted as presented, there is only one winner and many losers.

In all fairness, I think it’s time that we now heard from the silent majority on the other side – those who will not be voting HH. Those who understand that we must avoid Mr. Hichilema from landing in Plot 1 under any circumstances.

Firstly, let’s forget about the ridiculous things being said and focus on what’s true. Accusations like “HH is a satanist” or a “free mason” are absurd, and it distracts us from focusing on the urgent and legitimate concerns about Hichilema’s background.
What we really need to be worried about is the established history of HH and his known character flaws, his party’s ability to legislate in parliament, his history of selling (and then benefitting from) Zambia’s national assets, his foreign financing, tolerance for corruption, and yes, this one you know well, his issues surrounding tribalism and unity.

Zambians Don’t Like HH

There is a very simple reason behind HH’s failure as a politician – people don’t like him; they don’t connect with him.

A Zambian president must have the common touch. He or she may hold the highest office, but they remain a public servant, one that should have empathy for the people, to know how to listen, to deeply care for their welfare, and to put the needs of the nation above themselves and their family, tribe, and province.

Hakainde Hichilema regrettably does not possess these qualities. I have spoken to numerous people who spend the day in his team, with full access to him, and very few if any have managed to forge any close personal bond. Hakainde Hichilema is cold, very cold. He does not easily experience joy or affection. He has no sense of humor to speak of – his smiles are always forced for the camera, and his laugh is stiff and manufactured.

HH’s reputation for bullying behavior

There is nothing wrong with being shy or unfriendly if this happens to be your personality. In fact, some people may like the idea of his “always business” demeanor. But a lack of interpersonal skills for a president can be very dangerous – it leads to poor decisions.
For example, a few years back HH pulled Andrew Banda onto a stage to attack his own father. What kind of man exactly would try to use somebody’s own son against him, as HH did? This is just politics – you should be able to win because you are the better candidate – not because you have to rip apart somebody’s family. Ask yourselves: what kind of man does that?

No Constitution under HH

We must not allow Hakainde Hichilema to become president because his party lacks the parliamentary seats to pass laws, and appears to have no interest (or ability) to build coalitions with other parties. What this means is that the UPND will be extremely unlikely to pass a new constitution, especially one that would place certain limits on presidential powers like the defunct bill 10

With no new constitution, and a vengeful party seeking to “sort out” all kinds of imagined historical grievances and bent on seizing more and more power, HH would be overwhelmingly focused on keeping UPND in power beyond 2026 – perhaps for the next 100 years to come.

Violence, Repression, and Division of Zambia

As a young and untested leader who is deeply unpopular among voters in several key provinces, Hakainde Hichilema will be likely to unleash the Public Order Act, and send the police to beat his opponents into submission.

He has said that he would not use the Public Order Act, but he has not said that he would abolish it. The reason why is that he plans to use it, and to use it very aggressively to consolidate his authority.

There is also HH’s known record of intolerance for criticism freedom of speech – we have seen every now and then how UPND cadres have savagely attacked many citizens on social media who have different views to theirs

*What kind of unity do we imagine will result of this? Instead under an HH presidency we would have a deepening civil conflict, a country deeply divided along regional and tribal lines, and an increased possibility of the use of violence by the state against citizens. That’s why it is so hard to believe HH when he talks about unity – he simply has shown no level of brotherhood with other Zambians, instead placing the Tonga’s first and everyone else second, if you doubt me, list the top 10 leadership of UPND and you have the answer.*

Zambia is not for sale

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we must be very concerned about Hichilema’s history of selling out Zambia’s national assets and then benefiting from their sale. I am not saying that I have evidence that the sales of Lima Bank, Intercontinental Livingstone, or Roan Antelope Mining Corporation of Zambia (Ramcoz) were illegal – but I am saying that there are lots of unanswered questions.

By Hakainde Hichilema UPND President

The PF have delivered to the Zambian people a disaster that has tarnished the reputation of our country. We are the first African country to default in the COVID-19 era, following our failure to pay a $42.5 million coupon on the expiry of grace period on November 13, 2020. This reputation will unfortunately remain with us for decades to come.

As we had earlier advised on the need to avoid a default at all cost, the country now faces a real risk of holdout creditors taking legal action to seize our sovereign assets. There are reports already that some creditors have embarked on a process to determine a possible payout to holders of default insurance, which may trigger a chain of collection of payouts that could lead to the recall of the loans in full. Some banks are considering withdrawing confirmations of letters of credit issued to our business community, while other have suspended the global custody service and advised their clients to change future investment strategies for our country.

This basically means that our business entities shall now have to pay upfront for all our imports. Our access to cheap sovereign financing is severely diminished, and potential investors will now adopt a cautious approach to investing in our country. Simply put, the confidence in our economy, that was earned through the painful sacrifice of the majority of struggling Zambians, has been wiped out in a flash. We are staring at hard and long years of austerity, unless we as Zambians collectively decide to take away the responsibility to manage our economic affairs from the hands of this PF administration – the architects of this mess!!

While it is acknowledged by all, including local and international observers, that this crisis has its roots in the PF’s poor economic mismanagement, it is the ordinary Zambian who will have to pay the price. We all must therefore lend a hand in burying the hole the PF has dug us into. We therefore suggest the following steps that the PF administration must pursue to rebuild our credibility and creditworthiness, and to earn the trust of the global village, and above all restore our pride as a people.

First and foremost, we implore the PF leaders to ensure they always read from the same script. We can no longer afford situation where the Vice President assures creditors that there will be no default, and the country defaults within a few hours of issuing that statement. It reflects a lack of sincerity in handling this serious matter. Honesty is a virtue that should not be placed into doubt in any situation.
Second, we should pay the $42.5 million we defaulted on to unlock the support we need from the bondholders, as we embark on the more critical negotiations to restructure our debt.

Third, we must immediately engage the IMF and request for a staff programme, as a basis to embark on the journey to earn our credibility, creditworthiness, and a path to fully-fledged support. This will give the needed assurance to our creditors and potential investors of our commitment to a coherent recovery programme as we focus on rebuilding our creditworthiness.

Fourth, we have to come clean and be transparent about our country’s total debt exposure. The government must provide a full picture of our public external debt, domestic debt and private debt by quasi-government institutions that are not publicly guaranteed (including those contracted by companies now owned by ZCCM IH and IDC), arrears to suppliers of goods and services to the government and VAT refund exposure. The full disclosure must cover the terms on which the debt was contracted, for example, interest rates and maturity profiles. According to our constitution, this information should already have been in the public domain for the consumption of the citizens, who ultimately are the debtors. But that is not the PF way. We the people need to know the terms and application of the loans that we will have to pay through the taxes that we diligently contribute to the treasury.

Fifth, we have to scale up the engagement with all our creditors, especially the bondholders, who feel that the level of engagement has so far fallen short. This process must be handled with seriousness, transparency and honest yon the part of the PF government to demonstrate the expected seriousness and commitment to finding acceptable solutions.

Finally, we need to revise our 2021 budget as it is the tool through which the country manages its public finances. Our budget has significant gaps (refer to the statement by the UPND on the budget), and our creditors have expressed similar misgivings. The theme should be to cut all wasteful expenditures, such as slush funds, bogus expenditures on harmful and sub-standard goods and services, huge emoluments spent on politicians’ lifestyle, including the presidential jet. There will also be a need to reprioritize expenditures, by allocating freed-up resources towards growth enhancing expenditure lines.

We encourage the PF to learn from the experience of Argentina and Ecuador, which only a couple of months ago successfully restructured their debt, with the active engagement of the bondholders. We do note, however, that sound leadership is an important requirement under these circumstances and call on the PF to own up and do what is right to address the crisis facing our beloved Zambia. There is no time to waste.

By Fred M’membe on behalf of the Politburo of the Socialist Party

On September 22, this year, the Minister of Finance announced that he had made a request to bondholders to suspend debt servicing for six months because Zambia was not in a position to meet her debt servicing obligations due on October 14, 2020.

As you may be aware, 40 per cent of bondholders immediately refused to grant Zambia debt servicing suspension.

The Zambian government had hoped that when 60 per cent of bondholders met last Friday, which was the last day of the one month grace period given to pay from the initial due date, the bondholders would agree with their proposals. But they too refused.

Consequently, Zambia officially became the first country in Africa to default even if it had already defaulted on other unknown Chinese debt obligations.

As the Socialist Party, we are concerned with the lack of seriousness from the Treasury when dealing with these important issues. We have plenty human resource that we have invested in as a country and worked at the highest level at of both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It is an embarrassment to the nation that the Minister of Finance lied to the nation about his engagement with bondholders only for them to issue a statement the following day that there had been no direct contact between them and the Zambian government.

Why did Dr Bwalya Ng’andu lie to the nation? Is he covering up on the debt that was borrowed under the cover of darkness?

They say, ‘You can run but you can’t hide…You can fool some people all the time, but you can’t fool all people all the time.”

Reality has finally dawned on this Patriotic Front government.

What the international community is demanding is transparency on the Chinese debt obligations. The demand by the Minister of Finance through his representatives that bondholders should sign a non-disclosure agreement before he discloses the extent of Chinese debt and the conditions attached thereof should be of interest to every Zambian because this is public debt which you will all pay for.

As the Socialist Party, we wish to announce to the nation that the reason why this government has since 2016 refused to open it’s books to the IMF on the Chinese debt is because that would reveal the Patriotic Front’s massive penchant for bribes. Most of the loans have inflated figures because of amounts a few greedy individuals collected as ”facilitation” fees. The International community is well aware of the extent of corruption and are now collaborating with bondholders to expose how corrupt this government is.
Once that information on the Chinese debt is given, it will reveal how much money was shared and by who. At the moment, Ministry of Finance officials have been struggling to balance the figures before the IMF team comes in.

Dr Ng’andu must not continue protecting criminals. There is no place for them to hide anymore.

Dr Ng’andu has two options: It’s either he reveals the actual figures of the Chinese debt and Patriotic Front goes down so that we can protect our economy or he lets Patriotic Front continue hiding their nefarious acts and we all go down.

Dr Ng’andu has to make that choice because time is of essence. Thankfully, since we cannot demand accountability and transparency from the powerful politicians and their fellow gangsters outside government, a far more powerful group has come to our rescue.