Jerabos warn GBM

THE JERABOS on the Copperbelt have warned UPND vice president Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba that if the opposition political party wants confrontation, then it will be given to them.

Bornface Nsofwa, a member of the Jerabos, has said intimidating their Jerabo leader Simeon Kalobo would not help because the group supported the Patriotic Front on a matter of principle.

In his statement last week, Mr. Mwamba warned the Jerabos: “My advice to you is continue your illegal activities for now but come August you better know what’s best for you.
“Members of your organisation who have seen hope in the UPND did endorse and joined the party, publicly. You my dear are a spent force and your paymasters know it too,” he told the Jerabo leader Simeon Kalobo in a facebook posting.
But Mr Nsofwa said if Mr Mwamba who is popularly known as GBM, wanted confrontation, his group was not afraid as they supported PF on principle.

“They have done a lot for us in very difficult circumstance because they appreciate that the ordinary man must benefit from these resources and not give them away to foreigners.
“But if Mr. Mwamba wants confrontation then we shall give him. We are not afraid just because they are both rich and can hire mobs, the truth cannot be hired,” he said.

Mr Nsofwa said the warning by Mr Mwamba that things would change in August if the opposition party would be voted into power was a clear indication that the party did not mean well for the ordinary Zambians who were trying to make a living for themselves.

He said the Jerabos had vowed not to allow the UPND take a second bite at the mining industry, following the experience they underwent after the privatisation process which allegedly benefitted the opposition leader, Hakainde Hichilema.
Mr Nsofwa said it was a well-known fact that Mr. Hichilema benefitted from the sale of the Luanshya mine which left many miners suffering because there was no money to pay them.

“We cannot allow them back to take a second bite. Mr. Hichilema has never denied that his firm was paid a lot of money from the privatisation process and yet the miners were left destitute, why do they want to come back now?” he asked.
In his statement, Mr Kalobo said people on the Copperbelt knew what the PF government had done for them and that not even machinations by the UPND leadership would change anything ‘‘because the track record is there for all to see that they cannot be trusted’’.

Zambia Daily Nation