PUTTING 90 per cent of people’s money into Patriotic Front (PF) councillors’ pockets is a damning indictment on a political party that premises its election message on putting more money into people’s pockets.
This is a party whose leader, Michael Sata, has, since his first Republican presidential election race in 2001, been promising that if elected into power, he would put more money into people’s pockets.
Today, Zambians know that the pockets Mr Sata has been harping about are PF councillors’ pockets!
This is what Mr Sata probably meant when he declared after the 2006 presidential electoral defeat that his party would run the councils.
Following that year’s defeat in which he was presumably headed for victory, Mr Sata sought to save face by declaring that despite losing the presidential race to incumbent Levy Mwanawasa, the PF’s victory was in getting the majority of local government seats.
The 2006 presidential battering was a rude awakening to the PF leader who had campaigned against the MMD’s Mwanawasa on a populist platform of delivering in 90 days what Zambians had lacked for 42 years.
A tough one, this one was!
In his characteristic bravado, Sata claimed that despite failing to wrest the presidency from Mwanawasa, he had gained control of the management of local government and, with that, the PF would prove within 90 days at local level what it could demonstrate on the national front if handed the Republican presidency.
[pullquote]‘It is difficult to understand how, for instance, out of K124 billion, the Lusaka City Council could spend nearly half of the amount— K55 billion— on personal emoluments, while service provision and infrastructure development receive only K27billion or 22 per cent of the total 2008-2009 budgetary allocation.’[/pullquote]
It has been more than 40 months since the Sata declaration was made and if the performance of PF-controlled councils is to be the basis of deciding who should be in State House in 2011, Zambian people will have no difficulties making their choice.
Mr Sata’s 2006 declaration has since not been recanted, and what every Zambians still believes is that the PF is running most of the councils in the country.
Running councils is one thing, running them effectively is quite another, and running them scandalously is simply unforgivable and a self-inflicted electoral defeat.
So much has changed since 2006— president Mwanawasa has since crossed over to the opposite side of life, Mr Rupiah Banda is the new Zambian President since November 2008, Mr Sata is yet again trying his luck at the slippery Republican presidency and Hakainde Hichilema has changed from a gentleman to an insulting commentator.
While there has been so much change, certain things have remained constant, and these include the scandalous running of councils by the PF.
At his Press briefing held at the Copperbelt Energy Company (CEC) guest house in Kitwe two days ago, President Banda made a startling revelation of how self-interest has become the norm for PF-run local authorities.
The president singled out Lusaka, Kitwe, Ndola, Luanshya and Chingola councils whose levels of expenditure on personal emoluments would scare any sane person and raise serious questions about the PF’s ability to run the country if, by large slices of luck, they were elected into Government.
It is difficult to understand how, for instance, out of K124 billion, the Lusaka City Council could spend nearly half of the amount—K55 billion—on personal emoluments while service provision and infrastructure development receives only K27billion or 22 per cent of the total 2008-2009 budgetary allocation.
In the case of the Chingola council, only two percent (K202 million) of the K13.9 bn allocated in 2008 went towards service provision and infrastructure development while K3.2billion went to personal emoluments.
The scenario is not different in Luanshya, Kitwe and Ndola where 47 per cent, 50 per cent and 70 per cent respectively went towards personal emoluments in the 2008-2009 period.
Ironically, these are the same councillors who have been in the forefront demonising President Banda’s administration.
The president was, therefore, in order when he briefed the nation at his conference that it was unacceptable, or indeed immoral, for the PF councillors in the said councils to put self interest before service provision.
This can only be interpreted as a deliberate ploy, as Mr Banda, observed, to incite the residents to revolt against a government which is doing its very best to improve the citizens’ lives.
It is now clear that instead of selling the party’s policies to the electorate, the PF has found it more convenient to reverse the MMD’s development initiatives by holding back money meant for development and spending it on themselves.
Many are times when residents have complained against poor service provision, and the PF and their United Party for National Development (UPND) partners have been the first to point an accusing finger at the MMD Government.
With the president’s revelation, Zambian people now know the truth and when he calls for accountability, he should not be accused of politicking or victimising opposition parties.
Local authorities, regardless of their political affiliation, are supposed to partner the central government in taking development to the people.
They should never be the ones top stifle development in the name of opposition politics.
If that were the way opposition parties conducted themselves in the United States of America, Europe and other advanced democracies, there could have been no development to write home about.
Mr Banda was, therefore, right when he said at the Kitwe Press briefing that service provision was a shared responsibility between the central government and local authorities who are closer to the people.
It then goes without saying that the income collected from people in the form of taxes, rates and rents should go back to the same people through service provision and infrastructure development.
These monies should never be channelled to political activities as the case now appears with the PF which is denying people development in their respective localities.
It is further appalling to learn that the PF-run councils have conspired to reveres the empowerment policy that was initiated by the Frederick Chiluba administration.
Astronomical taxation has become the in thing in these councils that have devised methods aimed at frustrating house owners and people who bought houses under the empowerment policy.
Even if Mr Sata no longer likes Dr Chiluba, are there no better methods of fighting the man than letting innocent people suffer?
Unrealistic rates, rentals and other taxes can only worse the plight of residents who are already struggling to survive.
The councils are further delaying issuance of title deeds to people who benefited from the empowerment policy.
President Banda’s anger is understandable.
“By delaying to issue title deeds, councils are frustrating Government efforts to empower our people. This is a direct fight with me and my Government, and I will not allow councils to win,” President Banda said.
These PF-run councils collect a lot of money through various taxes including property taxes from mining companies and other entities but this money does not go back to the people.
The councils cannot even work on township roads, claiming that that is the responsibility of central government through the Road Development Agency (RDA), and yet the RDA’s mandate is trunk roads.
The councils collect parking, and market levies but still fail to maintain markets and put decent road markings.
The PF councilors’ sole interest in is to scandalously put more money into their own bottomless pockets and blame President Banda’s administration for the councils’ failures.
This time they have been caught napping, and they just have to explain how they intend to run the country if they can disastrously fail to run councils.
