A Ndola citizen has advised Zambia’s fourth Republican President Rupiah Banda to tackle poverty at three major levels.

Mr Humphrey Ngulube told ZANIS Ndola in an interview, Tuesday, that Mr Banda must tackle poverty in urban, rural areas and people’s consciousness.

He explained that Mr Banda’s administration must also tackle the issue of poverty of the mind which he said most Zambians had as most believed poverty was part of their livelihood.

He said there was need for the president to provide decent education by building more primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions so that more people could be equipped with skills they could use to improve their lives.

Mr. Ngulube further suggested that the President must address the issue of poverty in cities and towns by providing decent jobs, housing, food, water and medical care to all.

He said that in rural areas the President must make the areas attractive so as  to decongest urban areas.

He advised that rural areas could be made attractive by providing them with good road infrastructure, education facilities and decent health facilities.

Meanwhile, Mr Ngulube has advised opposition political parties to accept the fact that the country can only have one president at once.
He said the opposition should learn to attend to the needs of the rural population on daily basis if they were to win the 2011 elections.

He observed that people in rural areas could not accept the opposition if they only see them during the campaign period.

A Patriotic Front (PF) official in Kafue district has charged that it will be a share waste of time and resources to drag the MMD to court over the election results because the ruling party will still find ways of manipulating the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) in their favour.

Kafue District Patriotic Front Information and Publicity Secretary Anthony Kasuba said that his party on several occasions had lodged complaints to the ECZ over the misconduct by the ruling party in Chipata and the commission did nothing to re address the situation.

Mr. Kasuba said the PF will not embrace the message of reconciliation from Mr. Rupiah Banda because MMD is corrupt and believes in malpractices. He said that it was shocking to hear that Mr. Banda won the elections when in 108 constituencies the PF leader Mr. Michael Sata was leading and Haikainde also led in 17 Constituencies in Southern Province.

Mr. Kasuba however, charged that Mr. Sata would still win the 2011 general elections because the PF will come up with a strategy in rural areas to ensure that the election results are not tempered with. He added that there is no way the MMD could win elections in rural areas where people have no food to eat, roads are bad, there are no proper medical facilities and most of the youths are unemployed.

Mr. Kasuba also advised the newly elected President Mr. Rupiah Bwezani Banda not to include FDD President Edith Nawakwi, ULP President Sakwiba Sikota and UNIP President Tireyenji Kaunda in his new cabinet because they are a let down to the young democracy of the nation and are job seekers whom Zambians cannot entrust with leadership anymore.

He said in 2011 these leaders will be a laughingstock to Zambians if they stand on political platforms to speak against the ruling party. He said this is the end of Nawakwi, Sakwiba and Kaunda because they have no principles.

Mr. Kasuba further refuted that the Patriotic Front does not exist in rural areas, because this time the party had reached some far remote areas where the MMD does not exist and people there were saying they would vote for Magande.

But FDD Provincial Publicity Secretary James Musemuna said that the Patriotic Front will never govern this country because it believes in politics of character assassination. He said the FDD top leadership resolved to support Mr. Rupiah Banda for the sake of peace and continuity.

Mr. Musemuna charged that this is the end of the Patriotic Front because the party depends on one man Mr. Michael Sata. He added that the FDD is a democratic party and will very soon go for a convention to choose new leaders.

Mr. Musemuna appealed to Mr. Michael Sata to accept the results since the presidential by-election period is now over and it is time to fulfill the promises which were made during the elections.

ENDS/BS/PK/ZANIS.

The kwacha has made a dramatic comeback with a strong appreciation following the inauguration of President, Rupiah Banda.Before the election day the kwacha depreciated to trade at about K4,800 to one US dollar.

But the latest exchange rate report issued by the Zambia National Commercial Bank shows that the kwacha is now trading at K3,850 to one US dollar.This represents an appreciation of about 20 percent.

And Local Economist Chibamba Kanyama said the performance of the kwacha is a sign of the level of confidence investors have in the leadership of President Banda.

And Commerce Permanent Secretary,Davidson Chilipamushi, said the Kwacha will regain its stability now that the uncertainity created by the Presidential election is over.In the first quarter of the year, the Kwacha was trading at K3100 to $1.

Meanwhile foreign analysts are hailing the election of Rupiah Banda as potentially good news for mining companies like First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and Equinox Minerals Ltd. Like Mr. Mwanawasa, Mr.Banda  is strongly in favour of foreign investment in the copperbelt.

But one difference from his predecessor investors are happy with is  he appears to be opposed to the higher mining taxes that Zambia introduced this year. While he has said publicly that he will follow the policies of Mr. Mwanawasa, there is some hope for investors that he will make the punitive windfall profits tax less costly.

“It appears that the onerous tax rates enacted into legislation in Zambia earlier this year are likely to be significantly watered down. And this should enable the country’s copper producers to regain a stable economic footing,” TD Newcrest analyst Greg Barnes wrote in a note to clients.

Mr. Barnes calculated that the current windfall tax could top 70% at higher copper prices. But if it is reduced to a flat 25% tax above US$2.50 a pound copper, then it would decline to between 45% and 50%. At current copper prices, the windfall tax is irrelevant because prices are too low.

Mr. Banda barely beat out opposition party leader Michael Sata for the presidency. RBC Capital Markets analyst Cailey Barker considers this a “lucky escape,” as Mr. Sata was looking to enforce 25% local ownership in mining projects (though this was unlikely to get pushed through because of opposition in the copperbelt). Mr. Sata is contesting the vote and that may drag out the current proceedings.

First Quantum’s Kansanshi mine was the only one in Zambia that paid the windfall tax in the second quarter. Equinox’s Lumwana mine is going into production by the end of the year, but the company has a development agreement that it says will exclude it from the tax.
ZNBC/Nationpost.com

The Patriotic Front  has written to the electoral commission demanding a verification of the results of last week’s presidential elections. The Patriotic Front is  seeking a recount in 78 of Zambia’s 150 constituencies, saying the tallies should be verified by independent monitors and party agents, party spokesman Given Lubinda said.

We hope the recount and verification can be done soon,”he said.

Mr. Sata however said,”Knowing how corrupt the Electoral commission are, I do not think we are going to get much from them.That is why we now want to involve the courts of law.

He claimed that the number of votes announced in one district was higher than the total population of that district.

Mr Rupiah Banda won  40% of the 1.79 million votes cast on Thursday versus 38% for Sata, according to final results released by Zambia’s electoral commission.

The margin of victory was 35,209 votes. However the PF say the poll was marked by discrepancies between vote tallies and the number of voters on registration lists.Mr Sata led through two days of counting before Banda overtook him in results late on Saturday.

Mr Rupiah Banda was rapidly sworn in on Sunday.The swearing-in ceremony was held just two hours after election officials said he had won by 40.1% to Mr Sata’s 38.1%.

The United Party for National Development (UPND) will not petition the election results despite citing a number of electoral malpractices by some parties that participated in the election adding that the petition is a waste of time.

Party president Hakainde Hichilema says the party will now concentrate on providing alternative leadership by formulating policies that can help address challenges the country is faced with.

Mr. Hichilema said his party will also continue to prepare for the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections.

He described the just-ended presidential polls as the most competitive and exciting elections the country has ever had.

Mr. Hichilima has also thanked Zambians for voting peacefully in the tightly contested polls in which MMD’s presidential candidate Rupiah Banda emerged winner.

He has however expressed concern about the low voter turn out which was attributed to voter apathy among registered voters.

Speaking during a media briefing the opposition party leader also commended the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) for facilitating the October 30 polls professionally despite the pressure on the commission.

He has however called upon government to consider funding ECZ to enable the commission continue carrying out voter registration throughout the country.

He said this will help increase voter turn out once the country is holding an election and ensure a majority vote.

And Mr. Hichilema has disclosed that his party has written to the ECZ on alleged malpractices in the just-ended presidential by election.

And UPND vice president Richard Kapita said the just ended presidential elections provided an opportunity for the party to market its presidential candidate for the 2011 polls.

He said the party has resolved maintain the candidature of Mr. Hichilema because he has become more popular in the country.

ZANIS/CM/AM/ENDS

By Mingeli Palata

It is a fresh and new week, pretty different from last week’s campaigns, energy and enthusiasm; at least Zambians had something on their minds that kept them away from their poverty. Zambia voted and a new president has been elected. Rupiah Bwezani Banda is Zambia’s fourth. Hate it or love it!

Yes the election is done and over with but there are a lot of issues that have come out in this election that merit our serious consideration.

Everybody agrees that this has been a tight race, very close. The voting patterns are not so different from what most us had predicted. Michael Sata claims his own along the line of rail plus the Northern and Luapula provinces, Hikainde gets his Southern province, Rupiah wins Eastern, Central Western and North Western provinces. Yes not so different from the 2006 election.

Notice how easy it was for any political strategist to predict the results or the voting pattern in a similar vein it doesn’t take a pundit to see that Zambians voted on regional lines. As expected the easterners went yako ni yako, the Northern and Luapula provinces went for their own Sata and the Southern province maintained their default voting pattern. Of course there may have been some who voted purely on competence but the dynamics of rural politics all point to regionalism in the voting pattern. This comrades is a very vicious reality. Regionalism or any form of tribalism is detrimental to national development and risks disturbing the much talked about peace that our beloved country enjoys.

From regionalism, another issue that has re-surfaced in this election is the divide between the rural and urban votes and this has been the trend in most African countries, talk of Kenya, Zimbabwe and now Zambia. In any given election that has taken place in the last 15 years, the urban population has gone for the opposition while the rural population has voted for the ruling party. This is the trend, did you notice? For me this shows that the urban population are not satisfied with the way the ruling party have been governing this country. The urban voters are not happy and this is a big failure on the part of government or the ruling party; they have lost the urban vote in three elections in not more than 10 years.

Fine, you can talk about the country having registered a 5% annual economic growth rate, having reduced inflation and so forth but the question is how that translates to the common man. The people in Kanyama and Mwanabombwe don’t care about the inflation; they don’t care about 5% economic growth, what is 5% economic growth when they are buying mealie meal at K50, 000.00 per bag? What is inflation below 10% when every time they get on a bus the fare is increased? All the much chorused economic gains the country has made don’t mean a thing if the average pay is K300, 000.00 per month and the minimum standard of living is rated at K1, 800, 000.00 if not even higher.

Education is illusive for many, the two universities cannot accommodate the demand and the available private schools are too expensive for the common man. Graduates have been reduced to corporate kaponyas moving around the streets of Cairo road and doing briefcase businesses. They are no jobs in Zambia. No jobs. Most of my colleagues some of whom are reading this article have been reduced to doing jobs abroad that they otherwise wouldn’t have done back home.

In my view, this explains the voting pattern visa-vies the divide between the urban and rural votes. Our colleagues in the rural areas don’t feel the pinch of a capitalist economy or is it that their conditions are subject to manipulation by fraudulent politicians? While the urban voters have access to LusakaTimes, the rural voters have to rely on government controlled media to know what is happening and the truth is that any media will only tell you what they want you to know. It’s really issues of information and the sugar. The dynamics of rural politics are very different from urban politics. In the rural areas it’s mostly what the chief says and who distributes the most sugar. I had visitors from Chipata a week before the elections and I took the time to ask them who they were going to vote for and they told ‘kaili amfumu anena kale’ in an apparent reference to an instruction given to them by the local chief to vote for Rupiah Banda.

Development is relative to the situation. What urban voters see as issues very differently from rural voters and that is one thing the MMD knows very well.

Moving on, the voting pattern also raises questions about capitalism. If you look at the Sata vote; you will realise that it is more of protest vote than anything. Sata has a very simple message; ‘I want to empower you economically’. Is it time for Africans to begin rethinking wealth distribution? Is it time we tried to regulate the economy more to spread wealth to everyone?

Sata’s message is not ideologically different from that of Robert Mugabe, they both are saying that it is time we Africans became a little selfish and enjoyed some economic power. Like the cliché saying goes’ who so ever has the money has the power’. If you give investors 3 years tax exemption then why don’t you do the same to the local investors? The truth is that Zambians are over taxed well over three times. Think about it! The government cries of not having money but one thing they don’t realise is that there is a huge informal sector out there which is not taxed. Why? Because the taxes are high so people don’t register their businesses? The best way to widen the tax base is to reduce tax and provide an environment that will help grow local industry. Then you will have more money to build school. Simple.

Perhaps it’s time for Africans to begin implementing economic policies that favour us and not the west. Economic policies are models, there are other models, and Americans have their own models which has plunged them into the crises they are in. Why don’t we seek models we can benefit from? The thing is the current economic policies favour either foreigners or the rich few, nothing for a poor me living in Kabwata. There is need for us to seriously re-consider and find ways of creating an environment in which all Zambians can be wealthy. Maybe then, the urban voter will rejoice when they hear our economy has grown by 5%.