27/11/2019
THE GREEK GIFT FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
There are always big things that come as promises from the Kings and Princes in the Middle East whenever President Edgar Changwa Lungu or Zambia's high powered delegation makes expensive visits to Saudi Arabia or Dubai.
It was from there that the country was promised barrels of chaep oil that never saw a drip not even in the tank of the Presidential Motorcade. The President and his ministers made that costly trip and we were done baby-don't-cry by telling us we could get benefit free black liquid gold and cushion our escalating oil prices. It never came from that visit.
Next it was another trip to the same Middle East where we got another goat export deal that would turn goat farmers into millionnaires. Over three years since, no single Zambian goat has gone to Saudi Arabia.
Now President Lungu landed in the Emirates hardly 72 hours ago, and already splashed in our public media is another offer of millions of dollars by the Abu Dhabi development fund to finance our roads.
If the last two deals that were so much sang about by those in Government and echoed by State Media failed to come through, how much confidence can a faithful Zambian whose trust has been betrayed going to believe this roads financing deal?
Obviously, when you make such trips, you don't go with nothing to negotiate on the table. While we are not told what we surely take to the Middle East as a symbol of friendship, it would be safe to assume that we have been giving someting for nothing. In other words we have been getting a GREEK GIFT: offered less for whatever we give that only those who go to the negotiating table offer to the Arabs. If we have not been giving more, then we have been jetting to the Middle East, into Saudi Arabia and Dubai, at a huge cost for nothing. And this still comes around to our own Government offering the Zambian people a "GREEK GIFT" at a huge cost on the taxpayer.