EMMANUEL MWAMBA VS EDITH NAWAKWI .........the only reason Mwamba brought my name in his comments, is because I am female, said Nawakwi. EDITH Nawakwi has questioned those defending Alexander Chikwanda’s defective budget, saying they are only “motivated by the pocket”. And Nawakwi says it is only people with very little intellectual capacity that may think that she cannot speak out on economics and Chikwanda’s defective budget because she is a woman. In an interview, Nawakwi said it was only people like former information permanent secretary Emmanuel Mwamba who feel they have a birthright to defend Chikwanda regardless of the faults being pointed out by the public concerning the finance minister. “Why is it that it is only my brothers who are defending our elder brother ABC (Alexander Bwalya Chikwanda)? Why should it be like that even when our elder brother has presented a defective budget?” she wondered in response to the attacks by Mwamba, who questioned her comments that the 2015 budget was a theft scheme when she was Zambia’s first and only female finance minister. “The only reason Mwamba brought my name in his comments, is because I am female. I want my brothers to know that it’s only those who are in defence of my elder brother ABC, like Mwamba, who feel that they have a birthright to defend the finance minister regardless of whatever misdemeanour the public is pointing out. They are only motivated by the pocket.” In his comments on Facebook, Mwamba attacked Nawakwi following a story published in The Post under the headline ‘2015 budget a theft scheme - Edith Nawakwi’. “If you read The Post as your only source of information, you would be persuaded to assume that the narrative on national issues had degenerated to low levels. For how does one explain the recent banner headline in the paper that stated; ‘2015 Budget a Theft Scheme - Edith Nawakwi.’ How can a national budget be a theft and corrupt scheme? How can Zambia’s first and only female finance minister who is also FDD president make such utterances? Is this dialogue genuine? Can a national budget truly be a corrupt or theft scheme as alleged by Nawakwi in The Post?” read part of Mwamba’s comments. But Nawakwi said it was unreasonable for Mwamba to think that he has a birthright to defend Chikwanda even when the finance minister presented a faulty budget that does not meet the aspirations of Zambians. She said Chikwanda, in his own words, had publicly admitted that his fellow ministers were being corrupted by the Chinese in awarding road contracts. Nawakwi maintained that the 2015 national budget was nothing but a theft scheme designed by the government under the clear watch of Chikwanda. She also said she took great exception to Mwamba’s scandalous comments because they were meant to discredit her personality and her academic credentials of economics just because she was a woman. Nawakwi further said it was unacceptable for Mwamba to cast suspicions on her understanding of economics. “This is what we call gender profiling, and when people like Mwamba start speaking like this, then they have run out of intellectual capacity and ability to analyse issues objectively. You can’t tell people that ‘Edith is a woman, therefore she cannot comment’. Yes, the very fact that I am a woman means that I feel the poverty more than these people,” she said. “When I go to UTH, women call me and tell me they want napkins. They don’t call those in government or Mwamba because they know I feel their pain.” She said Mwamba needed to understand that in his quest to defend Chikwanda, he had failed to recognise that every time she commented on national issues such as the 2015 national budget, her gender profile was immaterial. Nawakwi said it was disappointing that Mwamba seemed to think that because she is female, she does not possess the right to comment on economic issues. Meanwhile, Nawakwi said Zambia has seen unprecedented pocketing of public resources in the last three years and the 2015 budget was merely designed to loot and pocket national resources. “I want Mwamba since, he wants to be the spokesperson of Chikwanda, to ask the finance minister to tell the nation what happened to the K44.2 million budgetary allocations to the constitution-making process in the 2014 budget. Without an explanation, that money has been looted and pocketed. There is a further K29.62 million budgeted for the same programme without an explanation on what that money would be used for,” she said. “Isn’t it common practice to the minister to go to the House and say we allocated so much and used so much? This is what it is supposed to be; it is a simple courtesy for people who put money in your pocket.” Nawakwi said there were a lot of dubious deals going on involving ministers.
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 08:44:20 +0000
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