BEING WASTEFUL IS REFUSING TO USE GULFSTREAM AND HIRING EXPENSIVE JETS - MUNDUBILE
BEING WASTEFUL IS REFUSING TO USE GULFSTREAM AND HIRING EXPENSIVE JETS – MUNDUBILE
….says the President’s decision to hire expensive jets for international trips, rather than using the presidential Gulfstream, was wasteful.
Lusaka – Wednesday May 14, 2025
PF/TONSE ALLIANCE Parliamentary National Affairs Chairperson hon Brian Mundubile says President Hakainde Hichilema’s talk about citizens being wasteful will be well received if he and his government stop wasteful expenditure.
On Sunday, President Hichilema encouraged citizens to change their spending habits, indicating that Zambians were wasteful.
In an interview, Monday, Mundubile said President Hichilema should address the wastefulness in his government before citizens could follow suit.
He added that the President’s decision to hire expensive jets for international trips, rather than using the presidential Gulfstream, was wasteful.
“I think the President was the right person to make those remarks because if you are talking about being wasteful, being wasteful is to hire private jets when you have your own jet. You have your own Gulfstream, you leave it parked, you are paying parking fees and service, and you don’t use it, and you instead hire other planes expensively to fly to other countries. And if you check how many trips that has been, that is millions of dollars that has been spent; that is what being wasteful is. Being wasteful is having the Attorney General’s chambers paying out to cadres without due process; that is what being wasteful is. So even as the President would like to tell Zambians not to be wasteful, I think let’s start with the leaders,” Mundubile said.
“So, the point I am making really is that we need to get to a place where we deal with real wastefulness before we begin to talk about the things the President was talking about. There is a lot of wastefulness within his government, and I think that is what must be dealt with before you start talking about the things that he was itemising”.
Mundubile said if President Hichilema cared about resources, the country would not have a situation where by-elections were deliberately created.
“If the President cares about resources, we’ll not have a situation where so many by-elections are created deliberately, especially at the ward level. We have seen that people who were elected as councillors are deliberately offered jobs as security guards, cleaners, and so on, as teachers, in order to create by-elections.
That is a sort of wasteful expenditure or wastefulness that we should be talking about. I think if we started at that level to deal with wastefulness, then the citizens would follow suit at their level.
[Wastefulness should first be dealt with] by the President and his government. They have been offering employment to councillors to create by-elections. Let’s control that first. Let’s deal with the issue of giving jobs to elected councillors to create by-elections. Let’s deal with the issue of hiring expensive planes when we have the Gulfstream. [The President] uses other planes. Let’s start from there, then we can talk about wastefulness,” said Mundubile.
“I agree, but the change must start from the top. The change must start from the President coming down. Parents must lead by example. If I am hiring expensive planes, I am creating by-elections, I am doing all sorts of things and wasting money, it becomes very difficult for me to be the same one to comment about wastefulness when children can see. If children see the parent being wasteful and the same parent comes back and says don’t be wasteful, it becomes difficult. So what we are saying is that these lessons will be well taken if the government itself stops wasteful expenditure”
(Credit: News Diggers)
