By Kellys Kaunda
IS THE COST IMPLICATIONS FOR THE TONSE-PAMODZI ALLIANCE MANIFESTO TOO PROHIBITIVE TO BE REAL?
I have read an interesting article on social media which has concluded that the cost of the Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance Manifesto is over K1trillion and that the Manifesto speaks to zero production. I beg to differ, respectfully.
For starters, not every development aspiration has to be funded from taxpayer contributions or borrowing. There is a variety of funding models for development which I don’t wish to go into.
For instance, to unlock the country’s blue economy (exploiting our water bodies), all we need is an enabling policy which in turn must be marketed and attract investment
There’re shopping malls allover Lusaka which are not government-owned and yet they count towards national development.
Depending on how government sells its policies, it’s possible to get the private sector, foundations, academic institutions, civil society and private individuals to undertake tasks that traditionally would be undertaken by government.
Zambia is unnecessarily poor because of the way development financing has been conceived. It’s not innovative and diverse enough.
On the question of “zero production” in the Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance Manifesto, the document is divided into 27 thematic areas with more than twenty of them in the production sectors
There’re chapters on making mining the anchor for economic transformation; breathing life into creative arts; the creation of clusters to leverage economic potential unique to particular regions; the establishment of incubators for start-ups; the creation of innovation hubs; enabling the digital economy, etc, etc.
If you read each of these chapters and you are acquainted with their associated dominant themes in development literature, it’s impossible for you to arrive at the conclusion that they contain “zero production”.
These are familiar development themes that are currently preoccupying development scholars. They are legitimate development options which have transformed developed nations.
Let me give a simple example related to cost. Do you know that just because your monthly income is K7000 doesn’t mean that the total cost of consumption every month is within this budget.
It’s possible to consume double this amount in a month because sources of income available to all of us are diverse. They don’t even have to be formal, predictable and systematic.
How many times do you get invited for lunch, for a drink, or given a ride? This is money you ve consumed. But do you ever count it? That’s life at personal level, and that’s life at national level.
If you calibrate national ambition based on the size of the national treasury, you might as well resign yourself to a life of crawling, never to walk, run, let alone, fly.