 Good evening, countrymen and women, as usual, I have been called by several media houses asking me to give my views on the Zesco, poor, tender, I have been called by several media houses starting from yesterday, throughout to today and I thought it was not going to be possible for me to speak to individual media houses, I decided that, at an appropriate time now, I would give my views, first and foremost, the U.P.N.B. government must be consistent, consistent in their actions and in their words. because in life it is important to walk the talk and not to talk the talk. The UPND has done very well in terms of creating a ministry for small-scale entrepreneurs with a view to anchor the economic development of this country on entrepreneurship because it is not easy to create sustainable jobs. Even President Acha Inde Ichilema has issued a statement and has let us two days ago saying that they were going to promote entrepreneurship among the youths, among the women, so that that would be a way of job creation. Now, in the business world, in the business world, countrymen and women, there are four or three men players. One is the manufacturer, two is the distributor, three is the wholesaler and four is the retailer. Get me very clear on this one. In the business world, business is subdivided into sectors. There is the manufacturer, there is the distributor, there is the wholesaler and there is the retailer. And if you have to create sustainable entrepreneurship, these four sectors of business must all be utilized in the way they are supposed to be utilized. If you shortcut any of these four sectors, just know that you cannot create entrepreneurship. Forget. Because entrepreneurship is a vast field. You can either be a manufacturer, you can be a distributor, you can be wholesaler, you can be a retailer. All these four sectors comprise what is known as entrepreneurship. Now, if you want to create an entrepreneurship with low funding among the youths, among the women, obviously, you don't expect them to be manufacturers. You rarely expect them to be distributors. You may expect them to be wholesalers and you definitely expect them to be retailers. Now, if this is a norm, why would Zesco, a parastato under the government, which want to create entrepreneurship, start going straight to the manufacturers to buy Zesco pause? And these manufacturers are foreigners from Zimbabwe, from South Africa and you say that we want to create entrepreneurship. Look, there are certain people whose businesses is there only to deal with or to deal in Zesco pause and they have employed zambians, they pay taxes and they contribute to the GDP of this country. Now, the money that goes to these distributors, literars and wholesalers of these Zesco pause that are planted in South Africa that are planted in Zimbabwe put up a markup. It's through that markup that they pay their workers. They've created those sustainable jobs because the business is always assured that Zesco will be buying the pause. If you start buying these pause from South African manufacturers, you start buying these pause from Zimbabwe manufacturers. Where is the creation of entrepreneurship? You see, the problem that we have in this country, we have blind following and cheerleaders. The problem that we have is if we believe in a government, you are a supporter of that government, whether they make a mistake or not, you just want to say oh is well. I was shocked to hear my younger brother who I was with in one opposition political party even going to the TV to be precise prime TV to defend the awarding of the contract or the impending awarding of the contract to South African companies saying there is no capacity in Zambia. Where is the capacity to manufacture any of the things that we use in Zambia? Almost everything we use are manufactured outside. China is the biggest manufacturer of what we use. Is it going to be okay for Zesco, the mining companies to leave all the Zambian suppliers and go and buy things from China directly overlooking these suppliers, the distributors of those goods and the retailers? Where is the economy going to be? Because if you are going to buy these things from Zimbabwe, you are creating jobs for Zimbabweans. If you are going to buy that timber or those poles from South Africa, you are creating jobs for the South Africans. But back home here you are telling us now we are going to create jobs, we are going to anchor our economy, our economic growth on entrepreneurship and yet you are jumping all the small scale people to go and buy from manufacturers. You cannot solve a problem by creating another problem. This morning I was speaking to one person believed to be a UPND sympathizer or a UPND card as it were and was telling me you know what they have done this is because in the previous government these poles were being supplied by a minister's son and to cut them off we have to go and buy directly. What a way of thinking. Nobody supports illegal things, nobody supports abuse of authority. But if there is such a problem, deal with that problem. It is not everybody who uses their position to do business. I would give you an example of myself. I was minister of youth and sport and at the same time we were hostings on 6. I was sitting on a budget of 165 billion quattres for infrastructure repair of hostels during of new infrastructure playing fields, soccer fields, Muamuna engineering and technical services. Not even close friends or relatives participated in the tender's administer of youth and sport because it could have been a conflict of interest. My CEO at that time came to me and said we want to tender for jobs in minister of youth and sport but I told them no you can't. You cannot do business with a minister where a minister. My own brother passed a Mutale Kamwidi. Hated me and he was saying no. I told him your name is Mutale Kamwidi. Your company is MK Ltd. You come and get a tender. Whether you get it genuinely or not genuinely people will just say this tender was given to Mutale Kamwidi because it's Chishimbakamwidi's elder brother. I refused them. I said nobody who is close to me is going to participate in the tender in this ministry. And now it's such a situation where a minister son was supplying this post to Zesco. I mean there are media measures to be taken other than decide to make all the people in that business suffer. My take on this. You should have said the same CDF money that you are giving to the youth in the constituencies. You could have said look youth there is an opportunity at Zesco for you to supply post, go to Zimbabwe, negotiate the prices with those manufacturers in Zimbabwe and will give you money you start supplying the post to Zesco. But for you to be defending and says no we have to cut down on costs. No, there is no capacity in Zambia. That to me is neither here nor there and it is a lot of unreasonableness. I want to appeal to the president Mr. Haga Indehijilema, my brother. These are some of the things that we are talking about. If the roads that have been built in this country were done by Zambian contractors, the roads that were done under PF, if they were done by Zambian contractors or in cooperation with Zambian contractors, where could our economy be? Where could our GDP be today? Because the money could have remained in Zambia to develop Zambia. Again, UPND you want to do the same. Start giving business to the outsiders. We have been crying in the mining industry, suppliers and contractors have been crying that jobs are given to outsiders. Now if you government, you are the ones to be in the forefront to give contracts to outsiders, supply business to outsiders, how are you going to control more money, how are you going to control Kansanshi, how are you going to compare Lumwana to give business to the Zambians? My appeal to the president, my dear brother, do the right thing. Don't let people with vested interest drill you, cancel this impending tender and give it to Zambian entrepreneurs. Cancel this impending tender, re-advertise it and say applicants must all be Zambian indigenous businesses. The amount that you are going to spend on that money is colossal and it's forex. Let part of that forex come and remain here to develop Zambian. So my take is I don't support that but already we are seeing some element of what I can call arrogance when you are advised. This is the way we used to advise even previous governments. When you advise you are answered off the cuff, you are answered with pompacity, with I don't know, power corrupts and people when they get into offices, they forget what they were preaching and what they were promising the people.