‘BA KAWALALA’
…when you’re caught stealing, you are a thief, Musumali tells UPND
By Mast Reporter
IT’S unacceptable for the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration to start lecturing the United States (US) government over the gross theft of its donated medicines and medical supplies, the Socialist Party (SP) has said.
SP secretary general Dr Cosmas Musumali said yesterday President Hakainde Hichilema knew the big drug thieves in his government, but was ignoring them.
Dr Musumali said Hichilema was afraid of the thieves of the medicines and medical supplies donated by the US, which was the reason he was failing to act against them.
“They [UPND] have not even been that thankful. They want to lecture to the Americans. ‘Use a different language and use a diplomatic language’. When you are caught stealing, in our languages you are called kawalala [a thief]. Surely, you are a thief. And that’s what those people have been doing,” Dr Musumali said.
He said Hichilema had completely failed Zambians who had entrusted him with the mandate to rule the nation based on his preaching that he was going to fight corruption but had resorted to doing the opposite.
“And if we are honest, the problem of stealing stops with President Hakainde himself. President Hakainde has served four years. He was aware of what was going on in the health sector,” he said.
Speaking when he featured on the Socialist Hour weekly programme on Hot FM Radio yesterday, Dr Musumali said the UPND were thieves who had reduced the validity and usefulness of the health sector to the Zambian people.
He described UPND as “merciless” human beings whose aim was to ensure that patients found empty hospitals, clinics and other health facilities without drugs.
Dr Musumali said it was not a deniable fact that anyone who was caught stealing was called a thief and wondered why the UPND regime was furious with the US Embassy for telling Zambians the truth.
“And when you talk to Zambians today, ‘why do you go to a hospital?’ They will tell you ‘we want medicines’,” Dr Musumali said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not a question of systems. This country has some of the best operational systems for essential drugs. It has put up some of the best systems in mapping out, for example, the essential drugs list. It is the political will.”
Dr Musumali said Hichilema’s mere reshuffle of Cabinet ministers and sacrifice of permanent secretaries’ jobs was not a solution to the organised theft of drugs in government.
“President Hakainde knew and was being informed when the Americans were talking. They are talking because this information has been delivered to him. He can’t, after some time, say ‘this is an eye-opener’. An eye-opener since when? Because it has been brought up in the public domain?” he said.
Dr Musumali described the current arrests over drugs as fake because they were not targeting the real thieves but only meant to corrupt people.
“You arrest this one, you arrest that one to show that you are working. This is a failed project. The President has failed the Zambians that had entrusted all that hope in him,” he said.
US Ambassador to Zambia Michael Gonzales has announced that effective January the American government will cut aid to the medical Ministry of Health by K1.4 billion (US$50 million) because the Zambian government has failed to act on gross thefts of essential medicines and medical supplies meant for be given free to citizens who need them.
But the UPND government has reacted with fury, first through proxies and later through Cabinet ministers who recently rebuked Gonzales for not using diplomatic channels.
