Sun, 01 Oct 2017 10:13:47 +0000
By Mwiine Lubemba
(Not Paramount Chief Chitimukulu)
If there is any lesson to be learnt in Zambia, it is this: “That being honest is the best technique you can use. Right up front, tell people what you’re trying to accomplish and what you’re willing to sacrifice to accomplish it.” Chishimba Kambwili, the so-called junior King Cobra, mastered none of these. Now reports keep surfacing of his imminent arrest following an investigation into his alleged involvement in corrupt activities that have funded his wealthy lifestyle. It has also been reported that some of his trusted lieutenants and rivals in the ruling party PF, have already started repositioning for life after the junior King Cobra. Now he is fearing of his imminent arrest badly.
Who is not aware that Chishimba Kambwili could be one of the pawns of the Brenthurst Foundation-financed regime change cartel that has possibly been hired to smear the images of key figures in the PF regime? Who does not know Chishimba Kambwili to have been a die-hard member of the ruling PF who once served as Information Minister in the Edgar Lungu-led government? Just go back to all his vitriol and invectives after he was kicked out of cabinet and the ruling party to prove this point. But this is another issue all together to be dealt with another day.
You could almost admire his naivety in believing that the people of this country would accept anything ceaselessly spewed from his ‘motor-mouth’. This latest desperation and elaborate corruption allegation narrative is laughable and smirks of something akin to a peacock mating ritual. In the September 23, 2017 edition of the Mast newspaper, disregarding facts, Chishimba Kambwili tried a calculated attempt to disguise his intention to use the Mast newspaper to campaign against the PF by launching a torrid attack on the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and the Head of State claiming that he had received information from State House and the ACC that President Edgar Lungu had ordered for his arrest on corruption charges.
His assessment of the ACC and State House staffers, is not only dishonest but mischievous, politically driven, very misleading and suggests envy and hate. The disguise was a deliberate attempt to assassinate the ACC’s proud autonomy in a senseless move to gain political capital on behalf of the UPND against the ruling PF – the party which he has always boasted, was running through his veins. Disregarding the outcome of government tender policies and procedures, Chishimba Kambwili sought to conveniently ignore important points and facts, purposefully pin pointing on the untruths. Hastily, he passed a verdict on the procurement of 42 fire tenders for local councils and the construction contract of the Lusaka – Ndola road dual carriageway. The true cynic he is, he excluded his own alleged corruption charges that earned him a sack from cabinet as Information Minister.
Chishimba Kambwili should be in a position to understand that in the world of honest people, the President does not instruct the law enforcement agents to arrest any law-breaker and people jailed for graft offences are not exactly petty convicts but big time operators. The facts are clear for everyone to see that Chishimba Kambwili’s bad-mouthing do not quite add up. A squeaky clean operator of his purport should be more thorough than he exhibited. Chishimba Kambwili’s misunderstanding of the issues at hand serves to multiply the embarrassment, and the anxiety that is seemingly emanating from his backers and controllers in the UPND is more palpable. His trajectory on the fight against corruption in Zambia is misleading, biased and partisan. His TRUE LIES remind me of Mark Twain’s legitimate claim: “Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies”.
Unwittingly, he exhibited trepidation and contradiction when he claimed the following: “He (President Edgar Lungu) has instructed the ACC to arrest me whether there is a case or not; they are saying let the court go and decide so that they can intimidate me to stop talking about corruption, so that when I talk about corruption, they say ‘he is the one who is appearing in court’. They are coming to arrest me next week and deny me bail, deny me a police bond, delay to take the matter to court so that I can remain in incarceration for a long time and then they intimidate me on talking about corruption.” But Chishimba Kambwili has made worse comments in the past than this. He claimed that nearly every Zambian knew that he was not corrupt but just a hard worker.
This begs the following questions: Why did he fail to reflect on the ACC, the Zambia Public Procurement Authority (ZPPA) and a London court of arbitration clearing the US$42 million fire tender deal, other authoritative facts and figures contained in the ACC’s response to his query over this procurement that has been running since 2012? Was he aware that five (5) cabinet ministers holding the portfolio of Local Government and Housing had seen this fire tender bid process? No, he cherry picked and touted what he wanted – untruths, thereby depriving his backers – the Brenthurst Foundation-financed regime change cartel of the true and accurate position of the deal. But if ZPPA, ACC and a London court of arbitration exonerated the deal, what more is there to prove? What was more convincing than the presented evidence in a London court of arbitration?
You can’t be alone in suspecting that Chishimba Kambwili and his backers in the UPND are used to getting their own way to such an extent that failing to do so results in toys exiting the pram at varying trajectories. He displayed cardinal hypocrisy when he failed to mention that only Albion Export Services that had previous experience in supplying fire tenders and their bid responding to the specifications tendered, was pegged at US$49 million for 42 fire tenders. Yet, Chishimba Kambwili wants people to believe his true lies.
It is common knowledge that under the PF administration, the ACC has convicted more people, including high profile public officials, more than any other time in the history of this country. The UPND and this PF ex-information minister are creating artificial dents on the president’s public persona. This is crash judgement.
Concerned that he is more likely to lose the 2021 elections in the very first round against a formidable achiever, the Hakainde Hichilema camp appears to have entered into a serious panic mode. One begins to wonder just what benefit the UPND sees in this foolish foray. For the neutral, Chishimba Kambwili and the entire Hakainde Hichilema camp have brought a lot of public amusement with this cheap and foolish propaganda. Desperate men, they say, do desperate things. It’s incredibly and increasingly difficult to extract good public relations and political mileage when the facts, figures and a London court’s exoneration don’t support your tender irregularities’ cause.
It is appalling how cheap politics twists the brains of many, including very educated people. For Chishimba Kambwili to misleadingly claim that the procurement of 42 fire tenders at US$42 million was nefarious and venal, shows complete political dishonesty. It does not require much for anyone to understand that a bid is only lost or won when all the procurement options available to both the bidder and buyer are fully exhausted in a regular manner.
The procurement of 42 fire tenders was scrutinized, disputed, appealed to by losing bidders against the winning bidder and the processes were set in motion up to a London High Court for arbitration. If this is interpreted by Chishimba Kambwili and his UPND cohorts as nefarious and venal, maybe a new definition of what nefarious and venal means is worth considering.
Surely, Chishimba Kambwili and his UPND backers do not believe that by merely accusing the former Minister of Local Government and Housing of corruption in parliament over the procurement of 42 fire tenders, no matter how credible the medium, voters would flock to the UPND in 2021, that would be incredibly insulting to the would be voters in Zambia. Stephen Kampyongo is an outstanding performer who has done very well for this country. Not all would agree, but it is an incontrovertible fact and no amount of politicking can change this.
Chishimba Kambwili’s portrayal of the erstwhile Minister of Local Government and Housing, as if his ministry’s successes should not be attributed to him is laughable. President Edgar Lungu appointed him and gave him all the necessary tools and support to work. Therefore, Stephen Kampyongo’s gains cannot be unconnected to President Edgar Lungu.
With no PF platform, the political pundits have opined that Chishimba Kambwili would wither on the vine. But as the saying goes: “You must beware of the man with nothing to lose”. He has created his own platform. And he is busy pissing copiously into the PF tent with incessant vitriol and invectives, like no one has ever done. A few months ago, it was reported that the ACC, were looking into Chishimba Kambwili’s business affairs in connection with tender irregularities.
However, what would surely kill off Chishimba Kambwili would be his expulsion from Parliament as the Roan member of parliament. That is the route his adversaries, who once cuddled him, until he took on a life of his own, have taken. As matters now stand, it is either President Edgar Lungu or Chishimba Kambwili – a shoot-out. Whoever wins will spell disaster for the other. If Chishimba Kambwili wins, Edgar Lungu will not be president for a second term, starting from 2021. If Edgar Lungu wins, Chishimba Kambwili will be condemned to the political wilderness with no platform.
Chishimba Kambwili has employed delaying tactics, first attacking the validity of the expulsion from PF, and responded by seeking an urgent High Court interdict to prevent the National Assembly Speaker’s declaration of his Roan parliamentary seat vacant. Whether he is able to hold out until 2021 is yet to be seen. Like Hakainde Hichilema, he will play the victim, which feeds well into the psyche of a poverty-stricken populace, yet to fully recover from socio-economic disillusionment.
He has picked up populist themes which have the potential to destabilize the country and force his opponents to reach a compromise. He has tried to also find a political solution by apologizing sometimes after he had got on the wrong end of Southerners by sensationally branding their loyalty to UPND as robotic, and at other times speaking well of his adversaries in the UPND. But his enemies in the PF are very determined to do him in. They know that his survival will mean their demise. And time is running out.
Chishimba Kambwili has humbly acknowledged the elephant in a multifaceted bid to save himself, but he goes on the offensive when he gets no mileage from his peace overtures with the UPND. While he was still in government, for months the Southerners had been demanding an apology from him. Did it come? Their demand for an apology went unheeded to the extent that eminent Tonga personalities sanctioned a caucus dubbed Chuundu Chaitwa to seek recourse to the injury caused by his utterances but the motor mouthed Roan MP remained obstinately adamant.
It is early days yet in the Lungu-Kambwili showdown, but what is interesting is that for the first time in the history of the country, the PF, and all the opposition parties are singing from the same hymn book with respect to Chishimba Kambwili – that is the extent of the political enemies he has cultivated. However, he still retains some support among the downtrodden and the middle classes of the mining towns on the Copperbelt.
In the meantime, Chishimba Kambwili, while looking over his shoulders, is also eyeing a legacy. He has so far been the most vociferous champion of local mining workers economic emancipation since the PF came to power in 2011 and even in the current regime. He has positioned himself as the local mining workers’ knight who will slay economic apartheid in the mining sector on the Copperbelt. This appetizing political space will be hard to counter unless co-opted perhaps? He himself has said that they cannot kill his ideas though not new even if he lands in jail. That is untrue.
Whatever the outcome of the Lungu-Kambwili showdown, Chishimba Kambwili will have written his political epitaph with falsehoods in the history of Zambia. And the country’s fight against corruption will never be the same. Under pressure from his handlers in UPND, he has unfortunately shown us the ugly side to the beauty of the free press.
Just a thought
