By Dr. Alexious Mulemba Business Transformation Executive in the Middle East
There is a saying that goes” WHAT YOU FEEL IS WHAT YOU ATTRACT. “WHAT YOU IMAGINE IS WHAT YOU CREATE” (Gautama Buddha). So if we feel we cannot afford free education in public schools, then we will always fail as a Country.
A negative mind of thinking it’s not possible to have free education is what holds us behind. The lack of believing in ourselves as Zambians is a serious cancer that we have. When the President says Free Education in Public Schools, is an opportunity for us all to start thinking on how we can contribute to transform our Country, than calling each other names. We Zambians in most times think Foreign is better and a Foreigner can suggest brilliant ideas that will change our lives. When it comes to ideas by a fellow Zambian, we always pull it down. Let us learn to “Contribute-Complement and Collaborate”, than always “Criticizing-Complaining and Comparing”.
The critics of the President that he is a liar and should give free education at day one of his tenure, are not serious or do not understand how processes work. They are the true letdowns of our country with most of them having held public office and failed us, hence being voted out. Yes, Zambia can afford to offer free education from Grade 1to 12 in our public schools, which covers most of the poor and vulnerable children. What we need as citizens and the government, is a mindset change that will drive better accountability and resource utilization. We should also learn to love one another and believe in ourselves, that it is Possible, We can Offer Free Education.
If I say Gulf countries do offer free education for their citizens in public schools, most of us will jump and say YES” Because they have Oil. Sure they have Oil, but we also have Copper which is found in every electronic component including cars and other machinery. SO WHY SHOULD ZAMBIA BE POOR AND NOT AFFORD FREE EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS? Copper is just one of the Minerals that Zambian has. What about other products and services like Tourism? We are a Rich Country disadvantaged with previous bad leadership that has failed to diversify and manage our resources.
The difference with our Arab friends is “Visionary Leadership”, which we now seem to have. The other strength our Arab brother have is their Resources or Asset Management strategy. They protect their market and what they have. That’s the opposite of we Zambians, accustomed to leaders that are careless, corrupt, with individual greed that puts a blind eye on resource control and monitoring hence, the foreign organizations including the mines benefiting Billions from Zambia as citizens get poorer and poorer. Most of our leaders, past and some in government know what is wrong but have not bothered to fix the issues because they and their families are benefiting at the expense of all Zambians. Citing the President “Next Time Know Who You Vote For” (Hakainde Hichilema).
Another examples from our Arab brothers and sisters. They have invited and attracted foreign Gas and Oil giant to invest in the Arabian Gulf Countries. All big oil companies are represented in form of Joint Ventures or Private Public Partnership (PPP). But, they are never allowed to sell Gas or Oil products out of the Gulf. The partners produce only and then sell to the Government, who then using their local Government-Owned companies like; The Qatar Energy of Qatar, Aramco of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) of UAE, to mention a few, are the ones mandated to sell outside on behalf of their governments. That alone brings better control, from what is produced, to cash inflow back into these countries.
Zambia can transform, if we revise some of the mining and other foreign investment agreements, to enable us control the foreign companies on what they export, specifically copper and other minerals, for a better cash injection back into our country. The current free hand given to these mines and other foreign companies has a negative impact to our economic growth. It also allows foreign companies to parallel tax evasion, creating a foregone cash inflow back into Zambia. Some transmit the revenue from our resources to their native countries instead of Zambia.
As a Nation, we also have a lot of loopholes in our government operations, despite investing heavily in smart and expensive IT Systems like SAP and Oracle, by Smart Zambia under the Ministry of Finance.
The return on Investment on such initiatives benefits individuals than the citizens because the electronic online automated platforms, e-government services are nonexistent. Services like passports, driving licenses, vehicle registrations, other government services and even Toll gates, should be digitized with The Postal Services getting transformed to play a role that can make it profitable again.
The lack of innovation and diversifying business mindset makes one wonder if truly executives running these strategic institutions qualify to run them. We need a different leadership with a mindset that will make decisions and contribute to help the government close these loopholes. Just that will help us collect more money so that we can have excess revenue to offer free education in public schools.
Big Organizations can also help through their Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR) to help fund some of the free education initiatives. Maybe some Tax relief to companies to genuinely help, maybe a motivator for many to do the same. The likes of ZCCM, Colgate Palmolive and others did the same in Uncle Kaunda Era.
All we need is right people with a positive mindset, who believe that free education is attainable, to help the President and his government, to come up with a proper strategies that can deliver the free education, which is POSSIBLE.
God Bless us all as we innovate and contribute, to helping the President Transform our Beautiful Country.
The title is misleading. For all intents and purposes, this article is about resource management
@1, he starts by stating that free education is possible if we fund it using resources from mining, and he does, indeed, get sidetracked and talks about extracting the most value from what is available in the country.
This author, and many others, seem to offer solid plans on how to manage our resources, the ideas are brilliant, how do we fail to implement them?
A brilliant article – not only about free education but in general. SPOT ON ” MINDSET CHANGE ” IS NEEDED
To the point of being repitetive and tedious we all know that since 2014 UPND has been parroting free education. Fast track to today its now education for all. The writer seems caught in two minds. The article heading is challenging the Bally led UPND and saying free education is possible. Into the article its castigating us the people to whom the promise was made telling us to be patient , for the delivery of free education demands many realignments and visionary input. My thought is having had so long to plan for this we are and were expecting the gensis of implementation. Somethging to give us hope that someone really meant what they promised and it was not just vote getting under the drive to get power at all costs. We all know the limited time frame even them who promised must have…
Even academic doctors are allowed to dream.
Nuts! Academic doctors think like this dude who did this article. Thoeries? Yes! Gone bananas? Yes. Who promised people free education a week after inauguration, the article author? No! Hh? Yes!
Who is f00ling who? The author is trying to f00l us. Did Hh walk back on the promise of free education? Yes! When? Last week on Radio Phoenix. What exactly did he say? Education for ALL not free education! What can we conclude on this article? The academic doc is blabbing and is lost in theories! Crap? Yes! Advise? When a politician promises, stick your academic noise out of people expectations! Which are? Free education now! Conclusion? Author is either Job or Attention seekers. Smart? Hell no!
I agree with the author on this one. When we say Zambia is a rich country, some think we are hallucinating. It’s like people supporting the IMF, when we say this organisation is past it’s sell by date we get insulted left right and centre but if you look at recent articles by bloomberg, we have been vindicated, but as usual we will get excuses from some quarters. I strongly believe that our inferiority complex stems from inaccurate history on how the colonisers run their affairs prior to independence. There is this false belief that somehow people were better off under the imperialists. If that were the case, why is Zambia so underdeveloped when these same colonisers ruled us for over 100 years? for me the answer is simple, these people did not come to settle, they came to steal and…
Well said and true. Africa has everything but you fail to manage yourselves and offer better services to your people. Sad. Believe in yourselves like we in Dubai. Our rulers don’t know number 2 but only number 1 and the Best. You can do it also.
…cont. and they are still doing so. whether we like it or not, our secret to our destiny lies within ourselves.
Also see comments? The author is somehow right, you seem a very negative society. Find the best in yourselves. When sheikh Mohammed said I want the best Airline. Outsiders laughed but we believed in him and suport. Now we have Emirates. The best. Same with our Metro and other good things. We are even doing space exploration. Positive mind, support for one Another and visionary leadership will help your country. Change your brother wrote something Good..
Oh wow! I missed that. So he said a WEEK after elections? I will try and check some of those speeches. Anyone has a video clip to confirm this? Realistically it is not feasible as we normally would inherit a budget in progress too. Unlike a home budget diverting funds from one entity to the other is a big deal mid-season. Anyway… let’s see how it works out. I believe it can work out with changed MINDSET.
The point is we did not give ourselves these time frames. Do not blame us but we were told within 48 hours of inauguration the dollar will trade at k5, fuel will be at K5, education loans will be cancelled blah blah blah. Inauguration was two months ago and not only have they failed to deliver one promise, they are back tracking on free education. No matter how many Degrees or Doctorates one will bring to defend liars, they will still remain liars until fertilizer is at k250 per 50kg bag and mealie meal is k50 per 25kg bag.
When you live in a mansion – enclosed in a wall fence, able to send your children to exclusive schools locally or abroad – it can be difficult for you to fully understand predicaments faced by struggling families! For them, It’s often about making difficult choices between food for the whole family or school fees for one child for one term..then what? The result is that, children are now ending up on the streets without even primary education. The trouble with leaving so many children on the wayside is that, they will later be the thorn in your well educated child’s side; and wall fences won’t protect you either. Free education to grade 12 is therefore imperative to ensure no Zambian child is left behind! As the author says, the wealth is here, you just need leadership with vision…
Cool!
I commend the author on this article. Yes! As The Man Thinketh, So He Becomes. We become What We Feel & Think About. Whether you believe in the Law Of Attraction, God, The Universe, or Self.
In 1961, the Late President John F Kennedy asked a question to Dr Wermher Von Braun, the German/American who was the Space Architect for
the mission to the moon. What is it going to take the USA to go to the moon? Dr Von Braun reply was:
Mr President! Just Having The “Will” To Do It
That reply from Dr Von Braun convinced John F Kennedy to go the joint session of USA Congress & Senate and make the case for funding the Space Program. The rest is history.
1. The *Will and *Belief to do something and taking *Actions is what separates those who stay on the bottom and those who rise up. The Gold, Diamonds and Wealth, CREATION is all in our MINDS. But we are burning too much energy being angry, insulting and shooting everyone and feeling that one tribe is better than the other.
A Mind & Soul that is at *PEACE* is the source of CREATING POWER.
You cannot become a creative person and impact the world when you rise up every morning with the aim of causing havoc, just to get a feel-good-factor, Such that ! Yes, I told him off, insulted him and called him a low life. It’s simply insanity and absurdity. You see it from certain politicians and LSK bloggers every day. It’s a national cancer that defeats progress.
2. To the author, it’s not that, it’s *Impossible. The problem is under the current economic weather & huge debt it’s not feasible. We have important lifecycle threatening urgent matters that HH has to fix. Having free education means the government must have surplus funds to the plug-in.
Frankly, HH was not serious when he said he would provide Free Education. He campaigned and coined it to amass himself into people’s psych. One can tell that HH had no well thought big plans, how he would fund Free Education – even though he made it sound like it’s just like *PLUG & PLAY* having preached this gospel for 15 years. There is a big between having a Political Will to achieve something and just duping people for a vote. That said he needs to be given an opportunity to solve other…
3. Stirring forward, if the WILL was there, and where both the Government and Private Sector became more creative to yield jobs, then that will add revenues to the government to invest in Free Education. It cannot be done even HH completed 2 terms. More reason is struggling to define his promise.
Nicely done. Twasanta mwane. Point on…anything is possible.
4. Yes, technologies such as SAP (System Application Programming) Enterprise and Oracle Enterprise Software Technologies would bring centralised efficiencies, transparency, and limit fraud in the running of government departments. Especially with Procurements, Supply Chain, Scalability, Payroll, Human Capital, Taxation, Account Receivables & Account Payables, just to mention a few. Yet again that necessitates the WILL to do it from Government & Private Partnership. As this requires training IT Personnel and implementing IT Infrastructure. It can be done with a collective WILL and rising up to challenges
Correction.. I meant to say.. #13
A Mind & Soul that is at *PEACE* is the source of *CREATIVE POWER*.
Reasonable normal people will know HEHH means free education up to secondary school for our vaunrable citizens ……
Firstly those children who are not going to school because parents can not afford then help extended to those struggling to keep up with school fees……….
The next help will be subsidised education for almost all public schools……..
Thus article should not have been here in the first place.
What Zambian politician failing to indicate is that someone will not do something a second time because they had a bad experience the first time they did it.
I myself I do not read Times of Zambia, Daily Mail and listen to ZNBC why? because they inclination is to the politician of the day and at end of the day just full of disappointment.
Would it be misleading to say that Politicians are our friends?
Yes indeed yet just speaking without an idea of how to implement your thoughts is nonsensical, and especially if you pronounce such promises before multitudes of people, you actually become a fool if you finally find that it is not attainable.
I would advise that our politicians must first think research before they announce anything to the public, these are the problems we are now faced with as a nation.
The government into place now doesn’t know what to do now that they are now in power however spoke mountains and valleys on there campaigns, to our surprise we are seeing nothing or nothing at all happening .
We where told that your plan of action was the best for Zambia, but we have seen is exactly the opposite of what you promised,
You have gone back to do the road…
SPAKA
Stop coming to lusakatimes twisting stories. HH said that he will provide FREE EDUCATION TO EVERYONE AT SCHOOL if he got elected. At no time did he mention about a selected few vulnerable children. He has only changed this story because he has been caught up. You should at least start by living with the truth. People like you are the chaps who don’t mean well to the nation. You do this for selfish reason to feed your egos.
Intresting article really and credit goes to you man;
just learnt how arab governments are strict with the proceeds from their Oil… and that is why the maximum profits realised are channelled towards subsidizing their economies …
Brilliant mayn we can do it…
The government exactly knows what is supposed to be done. Don’t lie to yourselves arm chair critics on here. For instance, after a messy government that run institutions and the mindset of most Zambians for years, just wake up in couple of months and say today is free education and so forth. Something is definitely wrong with you. You have to for instance, how much do we have? If we have some money , what is the best way to use the money.
#25 Henry Mwambazi
October 17, 2021 At 6:46 pm
“SPAKA
Stop coming to lusakatimes twisting stories. HH said that he will provide FREE EDUCATION TO EVERYONE AT SCHOOL if he got elected. At no time did he mention about a selected few vulnerable children. He……”
Stop being naive , ………
How old are you ????
Every politician says things in campaigns for an ideal world and finds a different reality when in office…..
In this case , a bankrupt rotten system of governance……….
In short, at most three things are involved(you can add): Political will ( there is now); Money (being put together now); Strategy (integral to money); and others including technical and staffing. This is a long term program not just to prove armchair critics that it can be done, NO
There is nothing wrong to make a promise, this educates us to know a bit about the mindset of our leaders, which vision we did not know because some leaders said so previous. So the nation either for the most did not understand what was going on. I rest my case!
I am positive it will come to pass but not at the arm chair critics flush speed, No! No especially from those who just lost power because we know their motives. What will they say when that comes to pass. Most of Zambians have short memory (or just pretend to not have experienced something) j, Mwanawasa gave Zambians free health services even when arm critics were like, “it is not possible.” Am well aware the policy was letter fine tuned which is the way to service all sectors of the country.
The learned Doc is looking for a job.
I cannot understand how people think that free education is not feasible.
The amount of money members of the previous regime each have in their possession – such as that recently found in a house is a drop in the ocean compared to the total, collective sum of what PF followers, sympathisers and cadres have.
People have statched millions of dollars in offshore accounts.
We’ve all seen houses being razed to the ground – meaning they buyers bought just the plot and expensive construction undertaken.
If all that money together with Mukula money is channelled to education – you don’t think it can be enough?
#33 Philosophus Diadem
October 17, 2021 At 9:36 pm
“I cannot understand how people think that free education is not feasible.
The amount of money members of the previous regime each have in their possession – such as that ……”
What you are saying is right , but that was money stolen from the billions zambia borrowed , that was than…….
From now on it is hard work and sweat and maximising Zambias potential to realise the dream of free education……..
Every country has resources and potential to be well developed. Problem with most African countries is lack of the right governance structure and smart leadership. The current governance arrangement in Zambia is only designed to serve politicians and also promotes theft and corrupt leadership.
@32Mauya… I don’t normally respond to funny posts like yours? but I feel its my right to correct you and make you think twice. I don’t need a Job in Zambia. Do you know what I do and my salary? People like you make good Zambians bad. I don’t know what you have done for our country, but if you want a positive and constructive conversation? To understand my points raised, reach me out on Twitter or LinkedIn. Please lets not pull each other down, rather we think how we can help the poor who can not afford.
I appreciate most comments Positive or Negative, but as a country we need to believe in ourselves. I can cite a few posts on how Americans went to the moon. How Dubai Built from desert dust to the most city visited. It takes positive mind. So reach out and never use emotions but facts…
Quite on point,hence the need to start thinking positive thoughts for our country
@35, we do not give a FK what you do and what your salary is. We know what HH promised and we know what he is saying now. We do not need the likes of you to come and feed us your theories.
@35 I suppose my post was rather offensive than being funny as you put it. All the same my apologies. My line of thought is that for now, free education is not attainable because even with the reduced school fees currently being paid, schools are finding it difficult to operate smoothly, grants are inadequate and don’t come on time. Have you done an assessment to find out how much one particular school needs to operate for a month? Further, how many schools do we have in Zambia? Bring out HOW the supposed budget for the schools will be financed not forgetting our current indebtedness.
@39, you do not have to apologize for these educated for nothing who thinks people living in Zambia have no brains. Does he know who owns the copper he is trying to compare oil with? The mines were sold to foreigners thanks to HH, and taxations are controlled by imperialists’. Getting back those mines will result to endless law suits and huge sums of money paid to the white people.
@Kci: My fellow Zambia. You seem very bitter unnecessarily with my Article. My Education has nothing to do with a thought or contribution on a serious problem affecting our communities. I am always in Zambia, visit rural schools and even sponsor Kids. Do you know how many kids drop out of schools over a K100? Compare that to even just the Landcruiser VX the Ministers drive. I know what I am talking about, with Quantifiable facts. Again, as a Country, we can afford free Education or Education for all. I am not here to back the President on what he said or promised. Rather to give some insight to our Lawmakers that we can afford free Education if we take certain steps.
What makes you think, my writing as my right, means people back home have no Brains?
With regards to the Mines, Read…
CONT…
With regards to the Mines, Read my article Again. I know they are privately owned for sure. However, we can still take control on the selling process to make sure cash is brought back into Zambia.
Again, I invite you to reach me out on Twitter or LinkedIn, than hide behind the curtains.
@39 Thank you and No worries, I understand that when we post things online, not everyone will like the content. It’s just human nature and there is no need to apologize.
God bless and we will achieve more as a Country.
@40 Kci, You are very stupid and bitter. Typical Zambian, All you know is talk too much with no solutions and Pull good Ideas down.
Well done Doc. don’t mind this uneducated fool, Never let him demotivate your good work. its the PF cadres bitter with the loss. Mwanya you will suffer and we will come for you for the Money you stole.
Ask him what he has done for Zambia. At least you took Emirates Airlines in to Zambia as a passionate Zambian. I salute you and your family with what you do, How you uplift Zambian overseas and home. You never select. I wished our country had just 10 of your Kind. we would be somewhere.
Dr. Alexious I think you are a Child when it comes to mines just like HH when it comes to mines. Do you know how minerals are exported in this country. The government just sits there and watches. Whatever little is declare to ZRA that what government taxes. If government need to start processing copper in to finished products they will need to buy copper first like they are buying Gold at Kasenseli mine. Do not tell about Zambia because I spend a week in a district and by the end of any year I would have visited every district in Zambia three times as part of my job. You brought article here and you Doctorates here and this were we will meet. I have better things to do with linkedin.
What free Edication? Fo you know how much are fees for secondary and primary? Secondary is 400 the whole year and primary is 200..this is already little…let me people pay something to give them power to have a say
most countries in the world supply free education from grades 1-12 no reason a export levy is not put on non processed copper ingots to fund the schooling programme.in Zambia