ABOUT TRIFLES AND OTHER THINGS SMALL
By Sean Tembo – PeP President
1. There has been much pomp and fare about current recruitment efforts for 11,000 medical personnel and 30,000 teachers, earmarked for the 2022 fiscal year. The new dawn administration has sought to portray this intended recruitment as a major score on their part. But what is there to score about a Government recruiting civil servants? Between 2016 and 2021, the size of the civil service grew by approximately 160,000, which translates to an average annual increase of 32,000. So if the previous regime was employing an average of 32,000 civil servants per annum and the new regime intends to employ 41,000 (11,000 + 30,000), what’s the major difference here, which an entire Republican President should be citing as a major accomplishment of his administration?
2. It is also worth noting that the new dawn administration’s intended recruitment of 41,000 civil servants is unlikely to be an annual event for each of the next 5 years that they will be in power, but rather it appears to be a once-off event. I very much doubt that in the 2023 fiscal year, the new dawn intends to recruit another set of 11,000 health workers and 30,000 teachers. So if we are to look at the expansion of the civil service cumulatively, we need to compare the 160,000 cumulative number under the previous regime against the 41,000 cumulative number under the new dawn. So far, the new dawn is behind by 119,000 (160,000-41,000), that is even assuming that they will indeed see through their current efforts to recruit 11,000 health workers and 30,000 teachers.
3. Truth be told, we do not know how many civil servants the new dawn administration will employ in their 5 year period in office from 2021 to 2026. So far there is nothing to celebrate about their intended recruitment of 41,000 civil servants for the 2022 fiscal year. If we are to objectively ascertain whether the new dawn outperformed the previous regime in terms of civil servants recruitment, the best time to do that would be in 2026. At that time, if the new dawn continue to employ an average of 41,000 civil servants per annum, they would have recruited approximately 205,000 (41,000 x 5 years) which we could then say is higher than the 160,000 achieved by the previous regime in the past 5 years.
4. However, if on the other hand the new dawn administration only hires 41,000 civil servants in this 2022 fiscal year and then decide to effect an employment freeze thereafter, it means that by 2026 their cumulative total number of civil servants hired will only be 41,000 which will be far less than the 160,000 hired by the previous administration. So, right now it is premature for Bally to be over the moon celebrating the planned recruitment of 41,000 civil servants. There is nothing monumental or worth celebrating there. Unless if one is really short of victories to celebrate. Which appears to be the case with Bally.
5. Perhaps if Bally achieved real success such as constructing the planned Livingstone – Ndola dual carriage way, then he would have something tangible to celebrate about. I personally find it embarrassing when a Republican President keeps on boasting about performing routine activities of Government such as employing civil servants or releasing money to buy drugs in hospitals. Those are the routine activities of Government sir. No need for boastful celebrations about such trifles. Only small-minded people celebrate trifles.
6. For Zambia to develop to its rightful level, we need a big-minded President with big dreams for this nation. A President who will only engage in boastful celebrations when he/she achieves significant milestones for the nation, such as flagging off an electric car assembly plant, or reducing the cost of living by half in one year, or launching our own satellite into space for cheaper and faster internet, or paying off half of our national debt in a year, or reducing the cost of borrowing from financial institutions to single digit, or constructing a dual-carriage way from Livingstone to Solwezi, or having the first indigenous Zambian dollar billionaire etcetera. Those are the kinds of successes which a big-minded Republican President is supposed to celebrate. Not routine activities like employing civil servants or the treasury releasing money for procurement of medicines. For the benefit of this nation, perhaps Bally should stop being small-minded and try to be big-minded.
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SET 09.04.2022