PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema says law enforcement agencies must do their work quietly because making reckless statements to the public can injure the Head of State’s reputation and discourage investments. In apparent reference to the report from the Financial Intelligence Center (FIC), the President expressed displeasure that figures of suspicious financial transactions were given out. He described that release of information as “grandstanding”.

President HICHILEMA: “You’re damaging the reputation of the President and the country. Willy-nilly grandstanding and saying things that don’t even exist. I was advising someone who wrote that there were suspicious transactions. Corruption amounted to $25 billion. What’s the size of this economy? It’s out of context. It’s not feasible. How is it that banks moved out $25 billion? All the banks will collapse in this country. You’re frightening investment. You won’t achieve growth. Do your work quietly. This goes to DEC, DPP, police, ZRA, Auditor General. Where I go to market, the profile of this country is very high and you can see the flow of investment every day. If I had time, I’d be receiving investors, local, regional and foreign every day. If you do alarmist stuff, you’re damaging the prospects of investment”.

We have so many questions to ask, but first of all, we must start by expressing our fear that the President; this President, seems to have changed. This HH sounds quite different from the HH that people desperately wanted as ruler of the Republic of Zambia. That HH who was the voice of reason; the anti-corruption champion; the patriot; the man who was the symbol of hope seems to be fading away. The HH we have now appears to have developed a new vocabulary that suggests a lot of wrong things. For quite some time now we have heard the President speak about investors in a manner that suggest that he values them a little more than the people who elected him into power. This is dangerous and it needs to be said, just in case the President doesn’t listen to his own voice.

Our first question is; who told the President about the US$25 billion suspicious transactions that he is referring to? Who told him that banks had moved US$25 billion abroad? Who misled the President here? Where did those figures come from? We can see that the President was referring to the FIC report and we wonder how he could have missed the facts. The FIC, in January this year, announced that it received almost 700 reports related to illicit financial flows involving over US$3 billion.

During his engagement on a programme facilitated by the Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD), the FIC director General Clement Kapalu said: “What we have seen over the last 12 months doesn’t look good particularly in the area of financial illicit flows. We have had almost 700 reports involving over about $3 billion worth of financial illicit flows. That is quite huge for our size of the economy and I think there is a need to continue to put measures through to mitigate some of these challenges. Happy to see that some of the recommendations made, the government has acted upon them”.

There is no FIC report or any other report for that matter, that is in public domain claiming that foreign investors deposited or externalised US$25 billion. That’s not true. So clearly our President is venting because he was given false information. But when he makes such a statement, he wittingly or unwittingly sends a threatening message to the law enforcement agencies and particularly the FIC to slow down on its work. In his remarks, the President was practically undressing the FIC head. He was one sentence shy of calling him out in public. That is very unfair and counterproductive. We can imagine the fear now that has gripped the FIC board and its management. We can imagine how scared they will be to issue any more reports relating to illicit financial trends. The President has buried the institution, we can forget about a resolute, determined and watchful FIC.

The second question we have is; why does our President speak so defensively about investors? When was the last time we heard him condemn their dealings; their false declarations; their illegal operations? Does this mean that investors who come to Zambia are as clean as angels?

An investor cannot and should never be more important than a Zambian citizen. An investor comes to our country because there is something they want here. We cannot allow them to come, sweet talk our President and leave him venting on his own citizens. That is wrong. Citizens have the priority rights to these minerals and other natural resources. It’s Zambians first then investors later, not the other way round. This kind of prioritisation for foreigners is dangerous, especially as it comes soon after the recent suspension of export duty on our minerals.

It may appear to be logical to praise and worship investors today because we are a poor country desperately looking for foreign capital, but in the long run, Zambia will be completely recolonised and our own people will have no say over the resources in their own land. We need to wake up one day and realise that in practice, we can actually do anything that investors come here to do. The most important component in the business of mining is not the skill or the equipment; it is actually the minerals. Skill and equipment can be acquired from anywhere in the world. If we had no minerals, no one would come here to mine. With that mindset we will welcome investors without this level of inferiority complex.

We are appealing to the President. Please sir, don’t change. There are still a lot of Zambians who still love you and they are still determined to vote you back into power come 2026. But when you make statements like this, you are hurting them, you are disappointing them, you are making them think twice about whether they should even go and waste time voting again.

To be continued…