BY ADRIAN MWANZA
PF member Chishimba Kambwili has advised UPND Alliance Spokesperson Thabo Kawana not to talk about matters he did not understand because he was ignorant and not conversant with government process.
Mr Kambwili who was responding to Mr Kawana’s scathing remarks that the PF had hired a British firm Highgate Advisory Limited of the UK as the Communications advisor for the debt management process US$12 Billion at a total cost of £333, 403.54 (US$452,897.36 or K9.7 million) while president Hichilema had managed to secure an US$18 million deal in a space of one month.
He said that the two things were different as Highgate were engaged to deal with the country’s debt which stood at US$12 Billion and that even the US$18 million was because of the bilateral deals they had brokered before the PF left office.
Mr Kambwili said the Alliance spokesperson was just looking for relevance hence the rhetoric that the UPND were the ones that engineered the US$18 million USAID support for Covid-19 and HIV/AIDS.
Mr Kawana in an interview said President Hakainde Hichilema who was in the US had managed to meet top executives from entities like IMF in the shortest period of time when the PF had failed to do so during their tenure.
He said the funds were as a result of the bilateral talks that were implemented by the PF and that they were just coming to fruition coincidentally when the UPND were in power.
Mr Kambwili said it was wrong for Kawana who was not even in government to issue such disparaging remarks when it was not the case.
“Kawana is just looking for a job that is why he is ranting the way he is right now because he is misleading the nation to allege the UPND are the ones that brokered such deals,” he said.
Mr Kambwili said the PF had engaged a number of institutions and that some of them would only bear fruit during the tenure of the UPND.
He challenged anyone in the UPND to come forward and deny if what he was saying was false because the truth of the matter was that the PF were the ones that started such projects.
Mr Kambwili said it was offensive for the Alliance that the UPND which was in office for a month had brokered deals when their predecessors had failed and even hired consultants to deal with institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
