The other day, a concerned member of the public lamented that the young men and women working for foreign owned shops in the shopping malls are more often times subjected to slave conditions! They’re made to work long hours on end for a pittance without being given much time for breaks.
Minister of Labour & Social Security, Brenda Tambatamba this is a sufficient wake up call; may you take keen interest and pursue the matter to its logical conclusion.
Anyway, if we may digress, who runs the mines, commerce and industry in this country? You must be day-dreaming to assume foreigners will develop this country for us!
If we may begin with the backbone of our economy, the mines….it’s definitely dominated by the foreigners. In every direction you look – Copperbelt or North Western provinces, it’s either the Asians, Arabs, Chinese or Westerners running the show!
Gemstone or gold mining may not be as capital intensive as compared to Copper mining. But who is running all the way to the Bank? It’s the West Africans or Tanzanians!
Let’s come to Commerce and Industry…….who owns our local leading companies such as Protea Hotels, G & G bakery, Trade Kings, Zambeef, Antheneon Engineering, Antelope milling, Macoppolo tiles? It’s Zambians of foreign extraction…. Greeks, Indians, Lebanese and Muzungus!
Isn’t a shame that indigenous citizens are comfortable running bars, night clubs and brothels…..lodges if we may put it more euphemistically! And we want to think we can develop our country like this?
Shame on you fellow citizens! You spend years memorising theories at universities but you can’t apply the knowledge outside the classroom set up to create wealth for yourself and our people. The only job you are good at doing is politics so you can draw massive allowances and salaries if not stealing from the people as we learnt from the Malanji case.
In our next offering, we look at why it might take us several donkey years to develop.
Salute!
Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst
Zambezi
Regrettably you have a government that thinks free education, CDF and crumbs the country gets from the mines can develop this country. No clue that we have to industrialise. They even think employing 30 thousand teachers and 15 thousand health workers is development – it is good but it is not development. Go back to the kaunda formula, Kaunda had major industries in each province, revive that and improve on it but not in your 4th year, its too late
About those working on slavery conditions at mall. It is the TRADE UNION that can solve their problems as it falls in its category. Employee against employer = report to trade Union NOT ministry of labour
And they can’t even see that what ever they are doing, poverty is going up. And blaming the drought which was only one season in their 4 years in power. And the un readiness to govern was completely exposed in their first year, when sharing of FISP fertilisers was through medas.
Who runs the mines…commerce in Zambia…of course its the West and now the East has jumped in….We can’t run our own mines…we can run our commerce…and no wonder the Western Imperialist laughs at us…
I am sorry Prince Bill M. Kaping’a. I usually agree with you on issues but here you are wrong. The companies you have named are owned by Zambians. They may be of different skin colour to you but they are Zambians. I grew up with the founders of Trade Kings and one of them was even married to a black Zambian woman. Many were born in Zambia and this is the only country they know. As for ‘slave conditions’, you ask any Zambian who employs Zambians and they will tell you horror stories about Zambian attitudes to work. It is pathetic. They cannot work unless they are sjambokked.
Zambians run down Zambia Airways ,they seek bribes from us returning Zambians at KKIA and even maintaining simple cleanliness in compounds and streets is hard for them.That’s why cholera loves Zambia.
Yes , Prince Bill M. Kaping’a should walk the talk .Lets see him own/run and grow one of the leading companies.Words are just fleeting ,actions speak the loudest.