ZAMBIA IS TOO RICH TO BE POOR

Its was only like yesterday when we watched international news channels and wondered what the global credit crunch was all about and now we are beginning to grasp the reality of this crisis. Frankly looking at how under developed our economy is, I never thought that we would be affected. Perhaps I forgot my economics and the backbone of Zambia’s economy.

The panic on the Zambian market has mainly been brought about by the depreciating kwacha, staggering international banks and financial institutions and souring food prices. This calls questions to mind over the mechanism of our economy; what is the cornerstone of the Zambian economy? One needs not read encyclopedias to learn that the fate of our economic performance is determined by the price of our good same old copper. Zambia has not learned it lessons and yet again our most valued and precious commodity has plunged us into another economy downturn. Because of the good copper prices and seemingly good economic gains (in bits of percentages), politicians got into some comfort zone. They became comfortable with the fact that we had gained 6% economic progress, a progress which has not translated to the ordinary person. The politicians have not learned.

Events unfolding this week in our country make it sad to be Zambian, in fact embarrassing. Like I have said before and will say again, Zambia is too rich to be poor. Indeed to rich to be importing maize from South Africa. This signifies great failure on the economy on the part of Government and also tells us that the fundamentals of the Zambian economy are baseless, they are too weak. More than 40% of our budget is funded by the west- donors, 44 years after independence. The mines which are our major source of income are controlled by foreigners who I can bet with you will flee should the copper prices continue to be low, yet they have looted a lot of money from this country.

Its simple, due to the economic crises, copper demand is low and going by the law of supply and demand, the price is low thus affecting the kwacha and investor confidence in the Zambian markets. We are stuck again. The question is how prepared is Rupiah Banda’s capitalist government to take us out of this economic downturn?

I am not shy to admit that my opinions are deeply rooted in humanism and communist ideologies which have been stained by the west as evil and ineffective but look who is having the last laugh now. For many years the west had celebrated and praised their capitalist system which Chiluba adopted without understanding its effects on the average person. He quickly adopted the western brewed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) and the fastest privatization program in the history of mankind which weakened. Our industry and manufacturing base is almost nonexistent; we have been reduced to the mercies of foreign investors.

Africa dear colleagues is much closer to humanism than capitalism, consider the African ideology of Ubunthu which was practiced by acclaimed African leaders such as Nkwame Nkruma, Julius Nyerere and Kenneth Kaunda. Humanism teaches us to think about the next person and calls on leaders to take their responsibility of sharing wealth equally; seriously. It teaches us to respect and care for one another. On the contrast, Capitalism is each one for himself and God for us all- free markets driven by the law of supply and demand, yes the very system that has landed us all in this problem. Seeing from what has happened in the major economies, if you leave the economy to the mercies of market forces, there is bound to be greed creeping in the market. People will borrow and borrow to an extent that should anybody default; a lot of lives will be affected. It is highly irresponsible for the government to leave the fate of human beings to selfish market players. No way.

Now the US and friends have realized that and they are busy defying the very ideology they contradicted for years- socialism, they are bailing and taking over banking and financial institutions. Now economic pundits are busy suggesting that government financial institutions should start buying stakes on the capital and money markets, but they are forgetting that once government starts doing that, interest rates will sour and you and I won’t afford to pay bank our loans mortgages- more crises. Government needs to regulate the economy to some extent- Moderate Socialism just like China, the world’s biggest economy.

Rupiah Banda and his buddies are following a western brewed free market concept and know nothing else than calling on foreign investors to drive our economy, this amounts to sabotage and irresponsibility of the highest order. Foreigners have no interest in Zambia other than making their profits- in bad times they will go and leave us wanting. Why does the government forget that year after year they are training business men and women who if given a chance would help turn the dreadful fate of our economy around? Why do they forget that if that Katemba owner at City market was given a loan or little tax exemption, in 5 years, he will be the next hyper market owner? That’s how McDonalds, Toyota and Microsoft started out.

The capitalist policies being pursued by Rupiah Banda’s government will not take us anywhere and they do not have the acumen to take this country forward. They have given themselves salary increments regardless of the impending economic crises, no regard for the hardworking teacher, plumber, carpenter, police officer and the men and women in uniform. PF and UPND have no excuse, they are equally greedy and should all go.

The farming season is on and there are no farming implements; fertilizer is too expensive for the average farmer to attain. We are still reliant on copper, copper copper copper. The same copper that landed us in problems in the 70s, 90s and now. Yet we are in a country with 40% of southern Africa’s water, vast fertile land and available manpower- why do we still import maize?
Clearly, ours fathers have failed, all of them; Rupiah Banda, Michael Sata and HH. It will not be anyone them leading us to the Promised Land. But it will take you and I. We need to wake up and start coming up with Solutions for Zambia.