Hichilema Tells Officials to Learn from the Past

President Hichilema has warned officials in the government against repeating the mistakes made by the Patriotic Front (PF) whilst in office.

Hichilema has long been critical of the PF’s handling of the economy and the unspoken tolerance for corruption. When former President Lungu left office in August 2021 the country’s inflation rate, for example, was above 20% compared to the sub-10% rates currently enjoyed in the country. The New Dawn administration has also made a number of high-profile arrests of former ministers for corruption offences revealed as widespread by internal auditing.

Speaking at the swearing in of presidential appointees including the chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Mwangala Zaloumis, Secretary to the Cabinet, Patrick Kangwa, and Ministry of Youth and Art Permanent Secretary, Chama Fumba, the President urged appointees to remember that their offices belong to the people of Zambia and should not be taken for granted.

“It is the people that own these offices and we owe it to the people that we serve them to the best of our abilities.

He warned of the ease of forgetting that you work for the people, that he could see such complacency developing and by saying “let us be truly servants of the people.”

Officials must “make sure we  who have come in don’t make mistakes that were made before because then we will not be any better as a team than those that found themselves in difficult situations and the results are clear: economy went down, debt went up, and expenditure went up.”

At the event, the President also urged the Electoral Commission of Zambia’s new commissioners to facilitate electoral reform. For example, he questioned why election petitions take a year to process when regular Presidential petitions only take 14 days.