BLIND PEOPLE HAVE BEEN LEADING
…ignorance is a serious disease in this
country, so how do you develop – HH
By Thomas Ngala
BLIND people have been trying to, have been leading people, says President Hakainde Hichilema.
Addressing the press yesterday at State House, President Hichilema who described himself as a hard worker said “ignorance is a serious disease in this country”.
He said given the drought that has caused electricity shortage his government has accelerated the construction of the Tanzania-Zambia interconnector so that the country can access power from East Africa.
While he could not give technical and financing modalities, President Hichilema said what is necessary for now is just to inform the public that construction has been accelerated to less than two years.
“Ignorance is a serious disease in this country.
You generate it (power) you can’t keep it in a storeroom. You can’t lock it up. Other than the lithium battery we are looking at storage, currently hydro you generate it you must sell it. Otherwise it is called stranded power. It is called isolated power. That is what is in Angola, in Tanzania. So that is why that interconnector is important. We have put in place a programme now to accelerate the construction of the interconnector. It is supposed to be a two-year project, under us, not those others. Those I can’t speak for them (in reference to PF). I can only speak for the UPND new dawn government. So we had a two-year programme, we are saying no it is too far. Can we accelerate it. Hence the unit that has been created in Zesco to accelerate the construction,” he said. “We are accelerating the work on the construction of the Tanzania-Zambia Interconnector so that we can access the power. It doesn’t matter whether it is 400, 200 megawatts. At least we will be able to trade to and from. Today there is a lot of rains in Tanzania, next year there may be a drought and they will be looking at the same interconnector to buy power from us. So sometimes I listen to these arguments and I say so now blind people are trying to lead the people, how does it work? Blind people have been trying to, have been leading people. So how does it work? I don’t mean physical blindness. I am talking about ignorance. Ignorance leads in people. How do you develop? That’s what is going on. Sometimes we must reserve our comments. If you are not sure of the facts or technicalities, reserve your comment. Don’t make it because you will just expose… but God works in His own ways. He allows people to expose themselves and people can make a judgment.”
President Hichilema called on citizens to “roll our sleeves, let’s stop complaining.”
He advised Zambians to stop spending six, seven hours of the day, valuable hours on social media.
President Hichilema also extended an invitation to the United Kwacha Alliance (UKA) members to invest in the country’s power sector.
“Organise yourselves, 10 of you, create a unit, a business unit, then approach the platform… talking about how you can invest. It doesn’t matter whether you are an opposition politician or you are a civil servant. Or you are a farmer or you are what. What the country needs now is to encourage you to invest in energy generation. Small, medium, large,” he said. “No one should complain, no one should say no, me I am left out. Come forward, even the UKWA (UKA) guys, come, come and invest and make genuine money, not nipping money from public coffers. That is a no go area. Why do you guys want to steal from the poor and then you start making so much noise, unnecessary noise? Do things that should help the community. This is the opportunity.”
He said after 5th of June press conference, “we were grappling with 300 megawatts of power at Maamba phase two”.
“Since we met colleagues, I called a meeting here of pension funds, right in the cabinet room there, banks in this country. We sat there, and I ran them through the challenges the drought has brought about and the need to generate diversified power, not just hydro. And I gave an example of Maamba phase two. It’s a $400 million ticket, cost, to generate 300MW, and by that time that we met we were short of $80 or $85 million… people are not active in this country on numbers. Somehow, people fear numbers. Numbers make life easy. You cannot cheat with numbers. Words you can play around and if you speak nicely you can cheat people and get away with it. Numbers you don’t cheat anybody, because they expose you… they will find an $80 million within a week or so to lend, not to give for free,” he said. “By 20:00 hours that day, we had raised $90 million, in this country, to support these measures. And today, Maamba phase two, I believe will be signed in a few days from now, financial closure will be achieved. I have rolled my sleeves. This President works, whether you like it or not, this President works. And I expect cabinet ministers to work, expect permanent secretaries to work. Procurement to work, every citizen must work. We became a lazy country over the years. We must replace laziness with hard work, smart work.”
President Hichilema said those in procurement must continue to rationalise the resources amid the effects of dry spells.
He said what the drought has shown to the public sector, even the citizens, is that Zambians have been wasting money for many years.
“We have been extravagant in this country. This will not continue under this leadership. For me, it actually confirmed my suspicions when I was in the opposition that the country was wasteful. That is why we are not growing as much as we should have grown. So this drought is a slap in the face to accelerate the work we should have been doing 40 years back, which we didn’t, including just the concept of water harvesting,” he said. “The energy team has been working day and night, including me. We work weekends, even when we are out, on duty out there, we work because technology allows us to be working on the same assignments at the same time, even late in the night. That is the work culture this country needs. Measures meant to ensure uninterrupted power supply, unlike what is going on now, to the hospitals, key installations, that is what we are working on now, quite advanced… as much power must be available within the context of the shortage to hospitals. Imagine a situation that there is an operation going on in a hospital, and there is load shedding, power goes off, and someone is on the operating table, will that person survive? Imagine a premature child on the oxygen machine…and there is load shedding, that child will die.”
President Hichilema also said that if there is no water in the locations people live, there will be new problems.
He said his administration is working on “what we are defining now as lifeline power supply” for small businesses.
“In the compounds for example, they consume very little power. Should they suffer the load shedding as others who are consuming more power? And can afford? The answer is no. So we are looking at lifeline power supply for small businesses that are negatively impacted by this energy insecurity occasioned by the drought. We need to address the energy generation side. The measures that have been taken on recalling some of the power we are exporting, yes, we have done already. I heard people three days ago talking about it. The government has done it already. I think you heard of a 100MW, also, what we are importing should come at a right price so we don’t inject an increase in the cost of doing business, therefore the higher cost of living, therefore the inflationary pressure,” he said. “We are conscious of balancing these variables. That is why we are working very hard. And we invite suggestions from citizens, from anywhere, it’s a global community now. When it was assumed that investing in electricity was for the rich people and the rich people only, this measure now will allow anyone of you here to generate power on your rooftop through solar panels as an example.”
He explained that citizens will be able to sell excess power to the national grid.
“We also expect the solar companies to bring down the price down of solar (panel). Why? We have removed the taxes… so we don’t wish to see a situation where the government has removed the tax which adds on to the price, the price remains the same or goes up when some of the cost has been brought down,” said President Hichilema.