I wish to respond to Diggers opinion on the matter where I am quoted as saying that the people of Zambia ought to vote for people who are already rich because they will not steal public resources when they form Government.

Let me begin by stating that, it is a fact that
‘ Charity begins at home’ and my point is that the term poor is ambiguous and may also state the lack of vision, planning of oneself to enrich themselves personally in their private life and depend on alms and pilfering to sustain themselves.

It is also a known fact that those who have made it economically in their private capacity have been exposed to the trials and tribulations attached to survive these, and have
made the right decisions to prevail and achieve success and therefore, are more likely to weather the storm even at National economy management without preoccupying themselves into self aggrandisement on public resources because of their positions and authority on public resources.

It is a tendency that once one assumes power, they do not wish to return to their past status when their tenure expires and therefore wish to enrich themselves by asserting their authority to pilfer these public resources to achieve a change in their financial status. However, those that are already well to do are less likely to pre-occuppy themselves with change of status because they have already arrived before assuming authority and will pre-occupy themselves in using their skills of being successful and rich to manage the affairs of the nation and transfer these to the citizens who would emulate and prosper individually.

It is evident that if you haven’t worked hard to be successful and all of a sudden you are thrown into managing public resources and as custodians of the national treasury you are bound to become mischievious and put your dirty hands in the cookie jar.

History does’nt lie, on two occasions now, we have had leaders who had a dent on their person. One had taken from a woman her late husband’s pension and the other a clients award by the courts. What legacy has been created by these two incidents upon assuming the Presidency.
My statement is by no way an indictment that those percieved to be poor may not be allowed to assume power at that level but that the dangers like we are experiencing now of theft, kickbacks and overpricing of procurements are more likely. It becomes Navionelanji as my cousins would say.

A successful( rich) person will say ‘ Been there, done that and worn the T shirt’ and will leave a legacy for all to talk about.

Therefore, I do not have any regrets or apologies to the editor of News Diggers, who clearly lost the plot this time by showing ignorance and misunderstanding on my statement and literally admitting that it is right to be poor and not strive to enrich yourself legally given the wisdom and brains given to us by our Lord.

It is quite disheartening that their opinion goes into a personal attack about my person. I will call that ‘gutter journalism’. Let us stick to the issue at hand and not the insolence that they venture into in their opinion.

Fact is “once bitten, twice shy”. In our case it is ” twice beaten, thrice shy”