THIS IS MALICE’PF is being absolutely digressional from issues it has to account for HH
THIS is malice! This is absolutely digressional from the issues which the PF has to account to the public [like] who is going to benefit from the sale of ZAFFICO, says Hakainde Hichilema. The UPND leader was reacting to the government’s verdict that he incited Kitwe residents to riot recently.
Kitwe residents rioted last week upon ‘hearing’ that Zambia Forestry and Forest Industries Corporation (ZAFFICO) in Ndola had been sold by the government to a Chinese firm. The PF and its government quickly blamed Hichilema for the riot following his remarks on Ndola’s Sun FM radio, which they contend incited those that took to the streets. Hichilema, who has since been summoned to report himself for investigations at Copperbelt Division headquarters in Ndola tomorrow, contextualised his commentary on the radio programme.
I had a radio programme with Sun FM based in Ndola on the 5th of November [2018] and they believed that because I mentioned on that programme that ZAFFICO is being sold and the buyer is the Chinese and that’s what they are alleging could have caused or incited violence, Hichilema told Mutuna Chanda of BBC radio in Lusaka on Sunday.
The truth of the matter is that the PF government itself, way back on the 5th of April 2017, through their Minister of Lands and Natural Resources Jean Kapata, indicated that the government was going to sell ZAFFICO. On the 21st of September 2017, the report of the parliamentary committee on parastatal bodies, which is managed under Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), there was information that IDC would sell, through a listing on the Lusaka Stock Exchange and this is clearly in the public domain by now.
Hichilema explained that in August this year, a Chinese firm called Non-Ferrous Mining Company of Africa went ahead to purchase, as a commencement of the sale process, assets of ZAFFICO, which includes a housing stock and that the transaction was reported.
The houses were actually handed over by a government minister. Again, it is in the public domain and the list goes on. Before I appeared on the radio on 5th of November, there were already some riots, some disturbances about the sale of ZAFFICO on the Copperbelt. So, how could I have caused riots if I was on the radio and merely stating that ZAFFICO was being sold when there were disturbances on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of November? It is not possible! he said, stressing that he could not have provoked anyone to riot because the people in ZAFFICO, in Kalulushi, in Kitwe already knew about the sale of ZAFFICO way back in 2017.
So there was no way that I could incite anybody by stating what was known by the affected people the timber traders, the workers of ZAFFICO and their families. This is malice! This is absolutely digressional from the issues which the PF has to account to the public [like] who is going to benefit from the sale of ZAFFICO. What will happen to the whole business of timber transactions in this country?
When asked if at all he had a chat with any ZAFFICO employees or the corporation’s union representatives, Hichilema responded in the negative.
I never spoke to any worker of ZAFFICO, I never spoke to union representatives of ZAFFICO, he said.
Hichilema lamented a new culture under the PF where anything that went wrong in Zambia was blamed on him.
Anything that the PF fails to manage properly, they say ‘it’s HH’. When there are exam leakages, they blame HH [and] when there were riots at UNZA they blamed HH. I can assure you [that since] the rains are late, soon they will be blaming HH for the delay in the rains! said Hichilema.