PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema says like vehicles collide head on, he will strike on public workers with sticky fingers in a habit of stealing public funds.
The Head of State warned public workers that loot public funds to withdraw from public service, before the long arm of the law catches them.
President Hichilema was addressing public servants during the Samu Lya Moomba traditional ceremony of the Tonga speaking people in Monze.
“Do not take what is not yours, leave the money so that we can buy desks for school children. Don’t steal public money. So that we can build palaces for these chiefs,”he said.
“We must distinguish that this is mine, this belongs to the people.”
He said he is ready to deal with those who fall foul of the law by dipping their hands in public coffers.
“You can’t put your hands in the tin. And you work in the hospital, you are a nurse, you’re a doctor and you pick those drugs, you take them to your pharmacy and you are selling. If you want to be on a coalition path with me you should get involved in getting that which does not belong to you,” President Hichilema warned.
“You will get arrested according to the rule of law it doesn’t matter who you are, and I am not going to relent on this one, I am head on without fear or favour.”
He said the jailing of former public officials who pilfered public funds should be an exemplar that those with sticky fingers will not benefit from their actions.
“The country needs to be disciplined. In the 10 years that passed we people went to work for government to steal from the poor. It’s a lesson to us! to these ministers, if you have long fingers you’re on your own,”The President said
“Mayors, councilors, council chairperson, all of us in public office, if you are going to do that you better resign before we catch up with you.”
He urged the PF to have some sense of shame over their past reckless borrowing, and stop crying the loudest about the hardships that the country is facing.
“That’s why we have restructured the debt. The debt was huge. If it wasn’t for the debt restructuring the 2025 budget all of it was going to go to debt servicing,”the President said.
“Who are making noise? The very people who borrowed too much money and wasted it are the ones who are making much noise. The same people who went to pee in the well are the ones trying to mislead the nation that the current government is not performing. They must have shame to acknowledge their wrongs and keep quiet.”
He added that public funds must be utilised prudently to give citizens a comfortable life.
“We the generation of today must help the children of Zambia that’s why we have offered free education to the orphans, to the children with difficult or challenged families. Everybody must go to school, that is the struggle of our time,”
“That is why you elected us into government to deliver free education, CDF from K1.6 million to K36.1 million.”
By Mwaka Ndawa
Kalemba October 15, 2024.
