Socialist Party spokesperson Frank Bwalya has called for the resignation of Zesco Limited Board Chairperson Vickson Ncube for allegedly attempting to offer himself as a sacrificial lamb to atone the lies of President Hakainde Hichilema on power loadshedding.
Ambassador Bwalya has described President Hichilema’s famous phrase ‘Bally will fix it’ as useless rhetoric.
Mr Ncube stated that if he had looked at the flow of the waters he would have been able to anticipate that when the country hits a certain time, the water levels will not be able to generate electricity to full capacity, adding that he would have also looked for solutions in the neighbouring countries with power as this would have enabled him to mobilise solutions to the potential problem.
“With Loadshedding there’s a failure on the natural part and the human part, on the natural part I can’t explain it, I will just mention that our hydrology is poor, our water reservoirs are also poor, no matter what we do, we have no control over the natural part, and on the human part we should have anticipated on that because in leadership there is anticipation of a problem so that when it comes, you are ready to face it, so, to that extent I shall take responsibility by stating that we failed the nation as ZESCO and as Board Chairman I take the full responsibility, I should have been better informed, and aware by measuring my hydrologies, looked at the projection and see at what point, we are going to hit a crisis, and I should have started fining for intervening measures so that by the time the crisis comes, am ready to meet it and I wasn’t,” he explained.
But Ambassador Bwalya said the manner in which Mr. Ncube handled the serious issue of Zesco loadshedding on Hot FM’s Hot Seat radio programme raised serious doubts about his approach to national challenges.
He said Mr. Ncube’s efforts to save President Hakainde Hichilema from the embarrassment of misleading the nation that his government had solved the problem of electricity deficit in Zambia is shameful.
“The attempt by Zesco Board Chairperson Mr. Vickson Ncube to save President Hakainde Hichilema the embarrassment of misleading the nation that his government had solved the problem of electricity deficit in Zambia is shameful. This act of trying to vicariously take the blame is a scandal of unprecedented proportion. As Socialist Party; we do not believe that President Hichilema’s claim that his government had ended load shedding within a few months of being in office was as a result of being fed wrong information as claimed by Mr. Ncube. This is because Mr. Hichilema has exhibited a scandalous propensity to claim easy victories in an attempt to divert public attention from his failure to deliver on all key campaign promises. President Hichilema has also exposed his habit of projecting himself as having the monopoly of wisdom in solving Zambian’s problems in line with the useless ‘Bally will fix it’ rhetoric. Against this background, we dispute the claim that the Zesco board chairperson misled Mr. Hichilema,” Ambassador Bwalya stated.
He charged that Mr. Hichilema was the chief priest of hypocrisy in Zambia.
The Socialist Party spokesperson continued:” Zambians know that when Mr. Hichilema issued the lie of having ended loadshedding, he made no reference to water levels at Kariba .We wish to remind Mr. Ncube that his job is not to launder Mr. Hichilema who many Zambians have come to know as the champion of fake promises and pronouncements. There are enough UPND praise singers to defend him. Therefore, we call upon Mr. Ncube to resign as Zesco Board Chairperson not for misleading the President but for attempting to offer himself as a sacrificial lamb to atone the lies of President Hichilema. Moreover, the individualistic manner in which Mr. Ncube handled the serious issue of Zesco loadshedding on Hot FM’s Hot Seat radio programme on Tuesday, 10th January, 2023, raised serious doubts about his approach to national challenges. He clearly showed that he also suffers from the same Hakainde syndrome.”
“Finally, we wish to remind Mr. Hichilema that when he was in the opposition, he attributed the challenges at Zesco including loadshedding to incompetence by Patriotic Front cadres who he falsely claimed were running Zesco instead of qualified people. But after he became President, many qualified engineers and top officials at Zesco were fired and replaced by individuals whose association with the UPND is well established. This scenario projects Mr. Hichilema as the chief priest of hypocrisy, “Ambassador Bwalya.
