By Chanda Chisala
Think about it. The biggest economy in the world, the USA, does not give universal free healthcare to its people because they say it’s too expensive for the economy to handle. As great as its economy is, there is not enough wealth to provide free healthcare without incurring a monumental cost. If they did this, it would bring their economy down to its knees because their taxes would have to become too high.
Zambia and many other African countries, on the other hand, promise free healthcare (including free drugs) to their citizens, despite being the poorest countries in the world. How do they manage to do that? The only way is by begging other countries to send them the drugs for free, and even to pay the salaries of their healthcare workers. Besides this, they also have to keep their taxes very high, which makes it even harder for them to create jobs, thus continuing the need for them to remain dependent on aid.
Unfortunately, many African elites who are now saying that Africa should stop receiving this aid and become “self-dependent,” are also the same people who support the costly system of our poor government giving out free things. But if you want free things, where do you expect the money to come from since the taxable productive sector is so small? This is the question that people never think about. They want to have their cake and eat it too.
The argument that there are European countries that manage to do this only betrays ignorance. These European countries first became very wealthy, with a large productive sector, before they started giving out free things to their people, which is why they do not beg other countries for their drugs. On top of this, these countries also spend a lot of money to try to ensure that there is no theft in such systems – money that African countries just don’t have. It is no wonder that even these European countries have been complaining that this system is unsustainable and could push their countries to bankruptcy.
African countries are the least able to survive the destructive costs of this expensive socialist system, but they are the ones who are the most enthusiastic about embracing it. Politicians in government boast about expanding this system, and opposition politicians promise to spend even more. None of them seem to really realize just how poor Zambia is!
The reason I don’t support America ending aid to Zambia is simply because they are the ones who have encouraged and supported this self-destructive system for a long time and they are only walking away after they have helped entrench it into the very DNA of Zambia and other poor countries that they have made dependent on aid.
For Zambia to survive without this aid, it would have to make a radical change both structurally and intellectually. Even the people who are saying we should just stop receiving aid are not prepared to accept that we cannot afford free healthcare or free education or any of these other expensive subsidies.
Neither can we ever manage to stop the thefts happening in these government ministries because the same socialist system keeps increasing poverty, which makes any donated (or tax-collected) money an obvious target for the wide network of thefts. The cost of monitoring and prosecuting these thefts will likely be even higher than the thefts themselves. And even if the US donated money to help our government monitor this aid, that money will also be stolen!
The UPND government should realize that the thefts won’t stop. They may have replaced PF people with their own people, but they can’t replace human nature with angelic nature. If even Mwanawasa himself, the most serious anti-corruption president, failed to stop these thefts, it’s a joke to think that anyone else will stop them. What has to be uprooted is the system itself: stop giving anything for free and turn these hospitals into privately managed for-profit entities. At the same time, radically cut the taxes for all businesses and employees in the country (to single digits), so that true productivity may grow quickly enough for people to have enough money to pay for their own healthcare and education.
Recent Articles from the Author:
The US is Wrong to Withdraw Aid
Are UPND and Opposition Both Trying to Lose Elections?
Who Was the Worst President of Zambia?
Hichilema Should Have Implemented Sata’s Idea
President Hichilema is a Good Man, But His Policies Can’t Fix the Economy
Should Zambia Really Return to Socialism?
The author, Chanda Chisala, is the Founder of Zambia Online and Khama Institute. He is formerly a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and Visiting Scholar to the Hoover Institution, a policy think tank at Stanford. You can follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/chandachisala.
Absolutely on point. May those with ears hear.
My already personally moderated comment has been moderated out either by LT or by shushushus who are now very active in these platforms due to the waning popularity of the misfiring government, but anyway I will post on another blog, I have lost nothing really
Yes, it’s time we rethink our economic strategy. The system of every politician promising free things from money that we don’t have has to stop. Time to focus on production instead of consumption.
This author is a bit suspect. I hope he is not sponsored to c0rrupt our way of thinking. For someone with such credentials comparing Apples with groundnuts is mind boggling. The US is probably the only country which can afford free healthcare for all its citizens. Africans don’t want charity, it’s forced on us to keep us in check. Zambia is not a free country, we are not free to trade our way without interference from foreign powers. The same powers who force our governments not to spend on it’s own people. Why not report on this hypocr1sy? instead you are validating a narrative that has been manufactured to cause confusi0n.
What?? Africans don’t want charity but they go around the world in big entourages with a begging bowl? You are not a serious person. Leave this debate to the adults.
@Cobalt you ve taken that point out of context. Africans dont want charity may have a double entendre but Im sure you can make out that the poster is saying It is not charity that Africans need. He goes further to offer trade as an alternative
Thanks, Chanda Chisala. I will be getting in touch soon.
Mwanawasa was at the centre of Zambias biggest oil scandal and you guys like Chisala keep blowing trumpets that he was Anti-Corruption. He is all over Wikileaks which anyone can read in the world
It’s with set mindset and attitude like this that we never develope. Who said theft can never stop. How come Ibrahim Traore has managed to stop it. This Chisala guy is just misleading his readers. Theft can definitely be stopped with corrective action and mindset.
@Razor, I’m sure you’re one of those many deceived fanboys of Traore who think he has also paid off his country’s debt?