SUN REPORTER writes
@SunZambian
ON SUNDAY President Edgar Lungu kicked out of his government Minister of Finance Margaret Mwanakatwe and immediately replaced her with respected Bank of Zambia (BoZ) deputy governor for administration Bwalya Ngándu.
The fall of ‘Happy Maggie’, as some call her, did not come as a surprise to many. She has in the recent past been in the news for controversial reasons.
During the important National Dialogue Forum (NDF) held in Lusaka recently, she was captured on video struggling to keep the heavy lids of her eyes up in the middle of serious deliberations.
The video went viral on social media, shared by thousands of people and hundreds of groups.
Some newspapers grabbed stills from the video and published the pictures on front pages showing Maggie struggling to remain awake and keep her chin above her chest.
It was cannon fodder for the gossip-crazy social media freaks who took turns in poking fun at the honourable member of Parliament for Lusaka Central Constituency and Minister of Finance.
Many of them believed she had been caught sleeping and was now trying to be following the deliberations.
Some citizens sprung to her support accusing those who were pouring scorn on her and baying for her dismissal of being malicious.
Before her dismissal, she had been a favourite target for attacks by opposition parties and their allies in the civil society who were blaming her for the sluggish economy and failure to reduce the foreign debt burden.
During her reign as minister of Finance the kwacha, the local currency has slid from K10 to K13 against the dollar.
The implementation of the sales tax she had proposed to replace value-added tax (VAT) has been postponed three times.
President Lungu appointed her as minister of Finance in February 2018.
