GUY SCOTT WAS DISRESPECTED BY HIS CABINET, MINISTERS LEFT THE COUNTRY WITHOUT INFORMING HIM- DR KAMALATA By Alfred Chimba “There were moments when he would call for a Cabinet meeting, and no one would come,” Dr. Robert Kamalata recalls. “One or two, maybe. The rest had already made their decision. They’d decided to go the […]

GUY SCOTT WAS DISRESPECTED BY HIS CABINET, MINISTERS LEFT THE COUNTRY WITHOUT INFORMING HIM- DR KAMALATA

By Alfred Chimba

“There were moments when he would call for a Cabinet meeting, and no one would come,” Dr. Robert Kamalata recalls. “One or two, maybe. The rest had already made their decision. They’d decided to go the other side.”

Last night on Crown TV’s Hardball program, I sat down with Dr. Kamalata, Former Senior Private Secretary to the Vice President, were he talked about the final, fractured months of Dr. Guy Scott’s tenure as Vice President and Acting President.
His account pulls back the curtain on State House in a period he describes as “very difficult” – 48 hours at a time when administrative decisions carried high stakes, but the authority to make them was slipping away.

“It was one of those moments,” he says. “You don’t make decisions alone. But how do you lead when the people you’re supposed to lead with are already gone?”

According to Dr. Kamalata, there were times Scott would ask to meet everyone in Cabinet. “He’d write a memo. Everything official. But no one knew what the end would be. Maybe one or two people would come close to him. The rest decided to go the other side.”

Some of those moves, he alleges, were brazen. “I remember this other time – this is the truth. Without permission, senior ministers left the country. He was in the office. He asked me to call one or two of them. I called. Then I was told, ‘No, these people have left the country.’”

Dr. Kamalata says he’s been an administrator for a long time. “I mean, the government was acting, but certain ministers left. And how did we know? It was interesting.”

He names three countries. “They went to Zimbabwe, met the Head of State there. They went to Nigeria. They came to Congo. Yes.”

What were they doing? “They met those presidents. And then one of those presidents had to call and say, ‘I’m having these people here. This is what they are talking about. Are you aware of this? Of them leaving the country without informing the President?’”

At the time, Dr. Kamalata believes, some in Cabinet saw Scott as “a stumbling block in what they wanted to achieve.” But he insists that wasn’t the case. “In any case, he wanted to be talking to them so that they find a solution. He spoke to them.”

But the real fault line, he says, was money.

“The main concern was this: They wanted to use public funds. Government machinery. Everything. For elections and stuff like that. But Guy Scott was against that. Especially when they wanted to use government funds for them to go for elections.”

Scott’s position, according to Kamalata, was clear: “He said, ‘No. You see, these are elections. If you’re going to elections, you must use party funds. You are not going to use public funds just for personal interests.’”

Dr. Kamalata describes a Vice President increasingly isolated, disrespected “to a point whereby they thought they were masters of the game.” He believes they were moving “away from what was supposed to be done.”

Three ministers, three countries, one call from a foreign president asking, “Are you aware?”

And a Vice President, memo in hand, waiting for a Cabinet that would never fully arrive.

Rest in Peace Dr Guy Scott.