By Natalie Kaunda

The year 2022 is set to mark Zambia’s 58th year of national independence, a time in which the country will look back to the several strides made in achieving national unity and economic prosperity. Yet, to look back and reflect on the poverty and inequality statistics in the country, exacerbated by alarming corruption and misuse of public resources as reported annually by the Financial Intelligence Centre and Auditor General’s Office is certainly not as pleasant a fairy-tale to remember.

As of 2015, the poverty incidence rate stood at 54.4% implying that 5 out of every 10 Zambians are poor. While poverty rates remain high, in 2018, the World Bank ranked Zambia the fourth most unequal country from a list of 150 countries. For a country that remains richly endowed with natural resources including minerals, land, and forest resources, the expectation is these resources should lead to sustained economic growth that translates into economic and human development at all levels especially the rural parts. However, being endowed with these natural resources fall short of their expectations.

Inequality in local communities stems largely from the limited participation of the local people in decision-making at that level, as well as the limited resources of the local authority to undertake developmental projects. In what can be seen as an effort to address existing inequality, in the 2022 national budget, the government increased the allocation of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) from K1.6 million in 2021 to K25.7 million in 2022 per constituency against K173 billion budget. This is meant to bring about infrastructure development, women and youth empowerment within local communities, ensure adequate health and education facilities and service provision including to tertiary level. This is through the loan schemes, and other broad-based development agendas meant to uplift the face of local communities.

CDF has for a long time been perceived to be a way of bringing development closer to the local people and has been a vehicle for governments to champion the agenda. In Zambia, CDF has been administered from the year 1995 with the aim of decentralising development projects so that the function lay with the area Member of Parliament and a select constituency committee. Essentially, CDF is meant to extend the development function of the central government.

The decentralisation policy is the vehicle through which the CDF is executed, and at present, the 2013 policy, founded on the vision of having a decentralised system of Government within the unitary State of Zambia, sets the legislative anchor for decentralization, but as with many policies in Zambia, it has not reached its full implementation potential. As a result of which, the CDF has been characterised by various challenges, stemming from lack of, to limited fund disbursal, to utilisation and management of these funds and the limited capacity of the local authorities to administer these funds.

While we commend the government for the step taken to increase allocations of public resources towards rural development. CTPD would like to put it forward that in order to address the extreme inequality and poverty, there will be a need to address some of the perpetual structural and administration challenges the country has been experiencing over the years, key among these include but are not limited to:

1. Policies and legislation: There is a need to ensure that the policy options that the government takes up do not only uphold the interests of an elite few but work to benefit the majority citizenry. In view of this, the government does well to ensure that the burden of taxation does not fall on the marginalised/poor but that this should be fairly shared. We remain concerned that the few working-class have continued to bear the burden of financing Zambia’s development while Multinational Companies continue to enjoy tax incentives and holidays.
2. Fighting corruption: Inequality is reduced through equitable redistribution of public resources and this is manifest through the provision of both public and common goods which all people get to benefit from, however, when a governance system takes a laissez-faire approach to deal with corruption, mismanagement of public resources is imminent.
3. Facilitate meaningful participation and consultation of local people: The government does well to ensure that individuals at all levels of society and regardless of status or inclinations are well informed and consulted on issues that affect their well-being. A good example would be the planned economic reforms, the government will do well to make public its intentions, and there is a need to make public the planned economic reforms to allow the public to have a buy-in.

This is not an exhaustive list but sets a tone for dealing with some of the underlying causes of inequality and poverty which is key if meaningful gains are to be realised. Issued by;

The Author is a Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) is a not- for –profit’s Programmes Cordinator

By Kapya Kaoma

When I saw the Times of Zambia front page story that “HH Feels Let Down; Says Appointment of Ministers and Permanent Secretaries in his “New Dawn” Government has so far not helped matters,” on February 10, 2022, I made sense of his February 8, 2022 tweet, “25.7 million is coming to your constituency. What will you do with that money? Please tell us.” If one didn’t know the sources of these statements, they could be misconstrued as misrepresentations of the President. Yet they came from HH.

I am not surprised HH publicly stripped naked his own administration. His Cabinet and Permanent Secretaries his worshipers praised as the most competent, but I termed Salaula. It is the worst team one can pick aside from the fact that they shouted, “Bally will fix it,” the loudest! If HH couldn’t come up with the right team to help him govern, why should Zambians trust his judgment on policy issues?

There’s only one way to explain his disappointment; a disheveled President fleeing from his own ugly shadow. That tweet said it all. He doesn’t have a comprehensive vision for the nation–every Zambian must come up with his or her plan; and “as the youth of Zambia say, Bally will pay.” The same with his administration; it is all about his lugubrious egoism; so he must find someone to blame for his failing ideological programs.

Bally worshipers are in sacred denial. Sympathy for their god, these strange beings lack as his Presidency hangs on the cliff. How would he dance forward without disappearing into the apocalyptic abyss from which no idol can escape? Is dancing the cursed dununa reverse his only way to save face from those of us who saw it coming as if diviners yet mortals? Alas. A solemn indictment of all merciless Bally worshipers with us–their disappointed god has gotten it; the New Dark Regime’s incompetence on PF blame not. Yet in the Baal Universe, Lungu to blame save that a self exculpatory confession a god finally made; “I am not fixing it.” But faithful worshipers proudly respond, “Baal you are fixing it!”

It is important to note that the issue of this Dark Regime is bigger than the Cabinet and Permanent Secretaries; the President himself is the problem. Upon taking office, HH declared bogus ideological programs such as CDF, free education, boarding bursaries, and employment creation for teachers, nurses, doctors, and unemployed youths among many others, when he had zero knowledge about the logistics of government under workings. As President, he has limitless funds for these programs, but not a single experienced personnel to implement them. This is because these programs affect various Government Ministries–that is they don’t necessarily fall under one department of government. The President’s pride and lack of consultations have created unnecessary bottlenecks and subjected these programs to delays, confusion, misuse and corruption. In the real world, for example, the Ministry of Education should have handled Secondary boarding Bursaries. Funds would have moved from the Treasury to the established and experienced education system. As arranged, however, the bursaries have to go from the Treasury to MPs, then to local authorities. People would then apply to local authorities, and once processed, the money will be sent to schools. Among local authorities, nobody is trained to process these transactions. In the end, HH created his own problem. A transaction that would have involved two Ministries ends up going through many different Ministries; duplicating the process unnecessarily. Nobody understands the system but HH’s complex brain.

The same with CDF. In his complex mind, Zambia’s underdevelopment is due to lack of money–the opposite is true. As Dambisa Moyo has shown, money alone does not grant development; strategic planning, project and market analysis, outcomes, and systems of project viability evaluation are engines of development. HH assumes that all Constituencies possess such skills, and that they have management experience and personnel to implement such projects. Moreover, needs differ from one community to the other; here the administration’s guidance on how all Constituencies projects will add to the National Development PLAN should have come first. Sadly, the President expects Zambians to tell him what they need–forgetting that in democratic nations, we speak through our MPs and Councilors. Parliament should have come up with exact guidelines on which activities and programs would be funded through CDF. Without guidelines, what would happen when people and elected officials disagree as to how this money should be used? And as with bursaries, which Ministry will have complete oversight of these Funds? The MPs would want to control the fund, but what is the role of local authorities? Will the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services, and the Ministry of Education have roles too? And what process would be used to ascertain which projects to fund? Nobody knows.

Moreover, how would this money be divorced from political corruption–that is MPs using these funds to ensure their own re-elections as opposed to serving all citizens. For instance, highly populated areas in one Constituency are likely to be developed over less populated ones for electoral reasons.

But the cost may prove deadly to all those involved. Whereas UPND MPs will be shielded from accusations of misuse of public funds, Opposition MPs are likely to be arrested one after another. If I were an Opposition MP, I wouldn’t be too excited. This is one route to Prison. But UPND MPs are only safe as long as HH is President. Thereafter, they will become devils of HH’s making–they will be arrested for misuse of Funds because Chimbwi had no plan. This is because most projects would fail due to lack of expertise and clear evaluation guidelines. More importantly, the money would pass through many hands before reaching intended audiences–making it easy to steal!

In short, the President own policies are buried in prideful ignorance engraved in his egoistic “one man kantemba syndrome.” The efficiency of every administration begins with the President’s vision planted in truth and reality. Unfortunately, HH does not understand that leadership means carrying others with you. Had he spent time thinking through his programs, consulting with community leaders, Civil Society leaders, Opposition leaders, community development experts and of course, political historians, he would have realized that Presidential ideological programs are always wasteful. They are also gold mines for corruption.

Fili uko tuya!