Your Excellency,
I wish to express my deep sympathies with the predicament you are in Sir. You have inherited a poisoned chalice. A nation in a mess that is reeling from the from high cost of living, an escalating debt burden, corruption, poverty, a litany of broken promises, a delayed constitution process, a labour movement about to stage mass demonstrations, a culture of political intolerance, violence among cadres, total confusion politically, and many other things too numerous to mention. I really feel for you Sir.
You are in the unenviable position of inheriting a broke government that is barely limping along while your citizens expect you to perform miracles and take them out of their misery. You shall spend your two-year presidency fire-fighting and doing extensive damage control. You need to stop the bleeding immediately which is far easier said than done.
Allow me Sir to suggest some ideas for you to consider in your efforts to stabilize the nation and take it back to the path of prosperity that it was derailed from.
1. Please Sir, I beg of you to curtail your own extensive powers which have caused all sorts of problems. Lord Dalberg Acton said that:
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority. Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality”
The Civil Service was unfortunately deeply politicized by first president Kenneth Kaunda. The power to appoint Permanent Secretaries has been abused by your predecessors who have often appointed less than qualified people. The Civil Service is the engine of any nation and when is it full of cadres, you cannot expect anything but incompetence.
Please hand over that power to a competent body. Trust me, it will do you good because now you shall have a properly functioning Civil Service full of career Civil Servants that shall span several governments. There shall be less disruptions and better continuity. It will not be possible to intimidate the PS’s and they shall be professional. This will reflect well on your government.
Judicial appointments, Service Chiefs and other Heads should either be appointed by competent bodies or subjected to parliamentary oversight. The Auditor General, Anti-Corruption Commission Director-General, Police chief, etc should not be in your pocket to hire and fire at will and to be instructed to harass political opponents anyhow. All political parties have suffered as a result of this, including your own.
You need to give up the power to gazette and degazette chiefs. Let that authority be under the House of Chiefs or some other competent body. You must also stay away from creating new districts and provinces anyhow, including naming or renaming important places and structures. Imagine the costs each time a new president comes in.
2. You won’t like this, but you should take away from your Minister of Information and Broadcasting the power to grant radio and TV licenses. Leave it with the Independent Broadcasting Authority which you have to ensure is truly independent. I know this is scary because you are probably thinking of what would happen if a media owner with an axe to grind is granted a nationwide broadcasting licence.
Don’t worry. If they are being malicious, people will see through their lies. You will have state media and other independent media houses on your side anyway. It is actually good for you to be criticized so that you improve and the people will love you and defend you against unjust accusations from hostile media houses. By the way, you don’t need two state newspapers. Sell off Daily Mail.
3. You need to urgently implement far-reaching judicial reforms. It is more than ludicrous that after 50 years, we have less than a thousand lawyers in this country with practicing certificates because of strange happenings at Zambia Institute of Advanced Legal Education where the pass rate is about 4%. It is probably easier to pass Physics at University of Zambia than at ZIALE.
One lawyer to over 14,000 people makes no sense. If we could compute the opportunity cost in delayed legal cases and reduced investor confidence because of our weak legal system, I suspect the figure would be frightening. One of the things used to rank nations on Economic Freedom is the legal framework. Nations with a strong Judiciary tend to grow faster that those without. A strong legal system with minimum corruption is necessary to facilitate more trade and business between strangers and to keep law and order, all of which are necessary for strong economic growth.
4. A few weeks ago, you promised us you would enact the new constitution by 2016 before the next elections. We both know that the current draft constitution with its 300+ articles cannot be enacted by 2016 because it contains amendments to the Bill of Rights which requires a referendum to pass. A Referendum requires a lot of time and money to organize and costs almost the same as a full election. The first year of your term you cannot alter the budget you have inherited. Your second year shall be spent campaigning for 2016 so there is very little room to manoeuvre.
Here is an idea; suppose you lifted out of the current draft constitution the top ten or so sections that have caused the biggest problems and you turn them into separate bills that you can present to parliament for enacting. It would be faster and cheaper and since those sections have already been exhaustively debated before by MPs as part of the National Constitution Conference that late President Levy Mwanawasa set up, it shall be easier to enact them as amendments to the current Constitution. The important sections are:
a) 50%+1 electoral system for the presidency
b) Presidential Running Mate
c) Public Order Act
d) Cabinet from outside Parliament
e) Fixing date of elections and swearing in of president-elect
f) Decentralization and Devolution of power to provinces
g) Dual Citizenship
h) Proportional representation in parliament and fresh delimitation of electoral constituencies
i) Media freedom
j) Freedom of Information
k) Banning of parliamentary defectors from contesting seats for the life of that parliament
l) Security of tenure for Judges and other constitutional officers
5. Cut the size of government. Do you really need 70 Ministers? Does a Ministry need two Deputy Ministers? Do we actually need 20 line ministries? What real difference does the Ministry of Gender or Chiefs & Traditional Affairs really make? Why is a ministry necessary for everything? Can’t they just be small nimble departments like the Department of Immigration? Do we really need 200,000 Civil Servants for this small economy who are consuming 75% of local revenues? Please close down some ministries and take advantage of technology to reduce manpower.
6. Reduce taxes please. Why should I be paying a total aggregated tax of about half my income? It always feels like daylight robbery, especially when I see your ministers in expensive vehicles of which they have two or three. I don’t understand why our Corporation Tax at 35% is the fifth highest in the world, beating even the African average. Try to get it down to about 25% at a minimum. Try to also cut VAT to 10% and have a uniform import duty rate. You should also consider a flat income tax. Variable tax rates just complicate things and are more costly to administer.
7. We need transparency in government. Can you please publish on a website every month how you are spending the money we pay through taxes. We want to know how much money has been spent out of the budgeted amounts. We also want to easily see how money is being stolen, misappropriated or left doing nothing. It is good for you to do this because we shall love you for it.
8. Can we modernise our politics please. Do you really need to be welcomed by a bunch of Ministers at the airport each time you arrive? Don’t they have work to do? Are those big women who dance for you at the airport really necessary? We all know you are the Don so there is no need to make sure you show us how much power you have. A little humility doesn’t hurt.
9. Please make it easier to do business and do your best to remove artificial barriers to business competition. For example, we are still stuck with only three extremely pathetic cellphone companies because your predecessors refused to give Vodacom and other companies licenses. Of course this advantages the current players and they have no incentive to be better because there isn’t enough competition. You cannot imagine how pissed off I get when a simple thing like a balance enquiry fails.
You need to give an independent ZICTA the power to issue telephone and internet provider licences which should be very cheap, in the region of K20,000. I should be able to register and start a new business within a day. I should not spend a month to get all the licenses I need to start a timber company or a hotel. Slow processes like that just make me take out a brown envelope.
Why is there only one place where I can take my car for fitness in Lusaka? It is a recipe for corruption. Can’t you accredit ten to twenty companies to do it for you? Why can’t I register my car fully in Nakonde or Chirundu? Must I come all the way to Lusaka just to have a number plate on my imported car when technology has advanced? This principle of decentralized services can be applied to many other things such as NRC, Drivers Licence and Passport issuing. Use a franchise system.
10. Each time you are making major policy decisions (eg subsidies, privatization or maize marketing), get smart people to argue on both sides of an issue so that you make better quality decisions. I would suggest you consider setting up a Think Tank of smart people to do research and present arguments. To be a good president, you must be dispassionate and apply a ruthless evidence-based approach that incorporates Monitoring & Evaluation. It does not matter how good an idea sounds. It must be tested thoroughly by debate which is backed up by evidence. So for example, the minimum wage seems like a great idea until you read the research about its negative effects on economies. Even after implementing an idea, it needs periodic analysis and evaluation to make sure it works.
Finally, good luck to you Sir and I hope you do far much better than our previous five presidents.
Yours in the service of the nation,
Michael Chishala
Good Lucky to HH our Dear President. Vote for HH 2015-2016.
A refreshing piece of advice. My hope is that the target person had ears to hear. Well summarised Micheal; most of us wish for this type of governance.
For sure this message is at variance to PF visionless Edgar Lungu. This is for HH????????????
Now this just shows Zambians are hungry for real change
You should have said DEAR EL
GUY SCOTT GETS INJUNCTION AGAINST EDGAR LUNGU
A High Court Judge has signed an order restraining Edgar Lungu from demoting Guy Scott from Vice President of the Patriotic Front to just an ordinary member. TECHNICALLY THIS MEANS GUY SCOTT HAS RECOGNISED THAT EL IS PF PRESIDENT OTHERWISE HE WOULD HAVE IGNORED THE DEMOTION!!! So who is BAD???
Dear Friends and Patriots.
I take this opportunity to invite you all to the Nomination Ceremony of our party President, Honourable Edgar Chagwa Lungu at the Supreme Court in Lusaka, on Saturday the 20th December, 2014. Arrival is 08.00hrs.
We need all of you with voters cards to carry them with your NRC as a requirement so that we can out-number the required 200 supporters. Come in thousands and let us send a clear message to Zambia and the World that we are THE PATRIOTIC FRONT, united more than ever.
The next time we meet at the Supreme Court will be on 21st or 22nd January, 2015 for the swearing in ceremony of Hon. CHAGWA.
I will be answering your comments on Facebook after attending Parliament, I just took few minutes to come and share this invitation with you all.
PF
Great Piece from Mr. Michael Chishala. The issues you have espoused in this letter are exactly my issues, I stand with you. There is only one or two candidates who are capable of heeding your advice. Lungu is NOT one of them. Michael is a brilliant scholar who has excelled in academia. From Kabulonga Boys to Mpelembe (Form Six) to the UK, he has been an astute student and he has much to offer to the Zambian political landscape. His contemporary Sunday Chanda on the other side is wasting his voice by selling his soul to PF. Sunday, my dear friend, you are better than that. Leave the tribalists and hooligans alone and aline yourself with progress.
The next president please;
1. Do we really need district commissioners and provincial ministers? In my opinion these people bloat government and contribute to inefficiency.
2. Look at the high cost of road construction which is double the regional average. We need to know why we pay more in Zambia.
3. Do former presidents really need houses to be built using tax payers money when the poor voters have no decent homes?
4. Look at the deliberate wasting of government vehicles that are grounded so that somebody can buy them cheaply under the Board of Survey (BOS) evaluation. Please look at this matter seriously, it will help reduce on the expenditure incurred to procure new vehicles.
Thank you.
I respect that you are hopeful that we will get a president who listens.
Good Lucky to HH our Dear President. Vote for HH COME NEXT MONTH
Well articulated article, Its only HH who can achieve this
I sincerely thank you Mr Chishala for having sat down and articulated these ideas in a concise and simple manner. You are a great pastor and each and every one of your ideas is a gem that some of us have contemplated.
My single addition is that Chikwanda’s 2015 budget should be scrapped, rewritten and reapproved by Parliament. In particular the proposed tax regime for mines will kill any expansion plans, marginal mines will close and no new mines will open in Zambia for the next decade. Let’s be courageous and do the right thing instead of playing to the gallery.
Sorry – meant to say “you a great patriot”!
It is the people who were crying that the government was not talking enough money from the mines. Hon. China was being blamed for not taking a lion’s share.
This is a refreshing article Mr. Chishala. Sound advice.
What you have listed is what has gone wrong in the rule of this country and someareasmade worse by MS.
God bless you. God bless Zambia! God will soon show us his choice
Armchair critics in Zambia are 10 per 1 ngwee
Well articulated…
Only HH can implement this observations…
The rest are just recycled politicians with a lot of hot air…….
Wishful thinking that HH will be the next President. Read the times.
I wanda wat makes people think tht HH z a seviour..we the pipo are to blame bcoz we don’t rise up as one wen politicians are misbehavin.we need to emulate the courage of the arabs.the don’t giv a damn about politicians,the demand wat z theirs and get it ratha than wet for elections.we need to show the politicians tht we can cause our own zambian spring if they take us for grated..I dnt see HH a seviour but us the pipo especially the youths
@Joseph
Sorry, but I have to address the matter of your spellings. I do not intend to disrespect you or belittle your intellect. But through you, I would like to encourage ourselves to spell words correctly. The era of sms texting should not redefine writing etiquette.
Guys, Correct spelling adds to the semblance of intellect. One or two legitimate spelling errors is understood, expected and sometimes inevitable. But a misspelt message may cause the reader to ignore the value in the message.
Thank you Crane, I hope many more take heed as to use this social medium we are privileged with intelligibly as we debate.
Michael Chishala Esq.,
You have the brains and the reasoning. I wish we could debate your article and revise and strengthen it and present it to the next president whoever the hell that may be on 21st January 2015 as his operator’s manual in his efforts to steer this machine called Zambia which has been dangerously veering off course under the kleptocrtic gerontocracy disguised as a democracy.
Good advice.
However, if that one without vision (and wishes to continue with the past) wins, then it’s advice to the one after him.
Lord help us
…good piece….the idea of being stuck with a budget designed by someone else with different ideologies to yours is not fair…..if PF got the day, they can continue with it because it is their master piece, but if new party gets the day, there must be a provision to re-design and re-submit new budget tailored by new administration….
…some aspects are not easy to change as they seem when one is outside the corridors of power. You come in with the zeal to bring in Vodacom…..’Zamcel’ offers your family 5% shares for you not to date Vodacom….all these people going round with you on campaigns want some post….one just needs to be firm and uncompromising….
@warlord, there is no need to be that strong in your wprding like whoever the hell will be. Whoever it will be is just a human being like you only that may be on the more couragious side than you since you cant even have your own party.
The article is wonderful and has quite some good substance and it is worth looking at it by all the aspiring candidates, especially those who feel are likely to be in state house come 20th january 2015. The issues raised are the very issues common people in Zambia are pressed with. Motorists have been hammered bellow the belt by RATSA because of one point for doing FITNESS, and for sure there is CORRUPTION there in BAUMORO where RATSA officers are gathered. As motorists we are already developing alcers, now that the year is going to the end. Thieves…
@Rasco
Point taken. It’s just frustrating that Zambians have been treated like insane kids. Different presidents but same style of manipulation and trickery. I am venting my frustration because the points Chishala raises are really good but do we have a listener? in any one of the people vying to be president?
Declaration of interest: I am voting for Hakainde but am not sure he is the one to be president hence, whoever the hell!
Dear Rasco, RTSA is not in BAUMORO (note it is Balmoral) but at MIMOSA in Chilanga.
@ crane , Well said. Some spellings and many a time statements ! Awe sure ala gambya.
Uwamatwi alomfwa. Ndechetela HH naumfwa umubige
Prove me wrong on 22 January 2014. Ediger is already annointed Zambian president . Votes count we are voting in Ediger.
He is not the anointed one! Someone who is anointed has a clear path and does things peacefully. One does not have to use violence as we have witnessed.
BRAVO!!!
This is a very sensible, & constructive contribution to online debate on L.T, not ma rubbish of so called “best blogger on L.T.”
Problem in Zambia is we have very low expectations /standards, & always appreciate people contributing Chaff, & Insults, viewing this as intelligence, enlightenment, & the way forward, then wonder why we vote power, politicians that are sub – standard, & lacking integrity.
Hi crane,i get your point and hope you understand my point as well..we need pro active youths/citizenship need a zambian julius malema..a person who can stand up against the oppressors..I feel sad when youths are busy complaining instead of taking up the centre stage..arise youths, arise for mother zambia
Hi Joseph,
I agree with you to some extent, we all need to be proactive. We are entrusting the management of our resources and ultimately welfare to politicians and it is folly for us not to be active and proactive. But action has to be taken with a fair dose of rationality. I am not a fan of Julius Malema. There is no doubt he sees issues that need attention, I just don’t think his manner of taking action is rational or productive. I think he tends to appeal to the masses through appeasement (which can be very dangerous and counter productive). We had a dose of that here with the “90 day fix all problems” mantra. And I imagine those that were appeased by that are more disillusioned now than before. So be proactive yes. But be rationale. I encourage you.
I WONDER IF ZAMBIAN CAN ANALYSE THINGS LIKE THAT.
IN ZAMBIA ITS WHOM YOU KNOW …
Nice article injecting a fresh breeze on points to ponder and great for debate.
Well written article Michael and simplified even for people with an IQ equal to room temperature. Any President who does what you have outlined is bound to be re-elected. Reduction in personal tax in particular will improve disposable incomes. There is no tax on capital gains and dividends for stocks and therefore it has worked to the advantage of investors. The work force in Zambia has not grown by much since Kaunda left so we are really breaking the camel’s back when the same workers have big extended families to support. Some of these things mentioned by Chishala are common sense but just require political will and skill to implement. 2-3 deputy ministers merely creates sychophancy, wastes government resources when the same resources could be used for needed social services.
@Joseph, I agree with you but we need to be careful in the way we do it, otherwise you may end up with more trouble than you bargained for. The Arab spring rode on extreme high emotions, with unbudgeted for outcomes. While the Arab world got rid of their tormentors, some of them ended up in situations they did not crave for. Egypt for example ended up with a military junta, others are still unstable and so on. However, it is true that the youth of this country need to be involved meaningfully into the way affairs of this country are handled. And here I do not mean panga weilders.
My thoughts for the Zambian situation is that we do not need to wait until things have really hit rock bottom. Waiting until things have gone to the worst make people act emotionally which at times leads to wrong outcomes. Let us engage the rulers every step of the way and if they show that they cant listen to the people’s concerns, remove them with the power of the ballot every term if possible. This will send jitters into every administration because they will realize that we mean business and that we can not, as a people, be taken forgranted.