HOT FM BOSS, OSCAR CHAVULA WRITES
Are we bewitched?
As a young boy in Nkana East Kitwe, I saw ba Kagem (kajamu) bring Bella (Emerald) to Some Senegalese I knew every Friday like clock work, they bragged over buying good pieces cheaply… They would collect and take to them Geneva after every few months.
They would return to Zambia loaded to the tooth buying Peugeot’s 504 from show rooms in Lusaka while ba kajamu only enjoyed ama stone wash jeans and lovish parties with gungstas. This went on for years as ba Kajamu continued enriching foreigners.
Today, the biggest emerald company in Zambia is owned by a Senegalese who ministers pay homage to with every visit they make to the copperbelt. He came as a teacher but has amassed so much wealth before our very own eyes, he has built countless villas in his homeland (Senegal), he has several villas in every financial capital of the world and laughed at our stupidity at every turn.
The Ministry of Mines and ZCCM – IH is clueless about the realities that are on the ground. Today if you go to mumbwa not far from Lusaka, you will find droves of Chinese digging and collecting gold quietly… They have done this for close to 10 years, nobody bothers them at all and all the locals dig for them.
Successive governments have completely neglected to empower Zambians, nothing is ring fenced for Zambians, Never! We find ourselves not just disempowered but preference is given to foreigners who careless for Zambians or Zambia.
Name One Zambian who is wealthy from our natural resources and I will name Ten foreigners who came here with nothing but have amassed great wealth on the back of Zambians who they are now locking up in warehouses to make cement for export.
Being a foreigners in your homeland is what we have become! It’s ridiculous and unacceptable.
The difference between me and the next Ching or foreigner on the road is resources chapwa, not commitment, not discipline or focus. I can say without equivocation that I can out perform any Ching around… all things being equal. A man paying 33% p.a in interest for finance can never be compared with a man paying 0.25 p.a interest. CEEC is an endless scam, employees and politicians gather their friends and relatives every time there is a cent to hand out.
We are not asking for hand outs but birth right opportunities. Is that too much to ask surely?