As Zambia joins world mark workers day, UPND leader, Hakainde Hichilema says it is worrying that things are getting worse every day with an economy that has collapsed under the watch of corrupt leaders whose only interest is to accumulate personal wealth instead of improving the welfare of the citizens.
He says his party fully understands the difficulties citizens face every day, who have to endure the high cost of basic needs, daily increases in prices of goods and services, labour laws that are not enforced to protect the workers and the pension benefits that have lost value or not paid long after one has retired.
He writes:
We would like to recognise all the workers, the millions of Zambians, who search daily for an opportunity to merely survive and the 300,000 youths that join the labour market every year.
We sincerely thank them for their service and contribution to build a better Zambia under the current challenging circumstances. We know things are getting worse every day with an economy that has collapsed under the watch of corrupt leaders whose only interest is to accumulate personal wealth instead of improving the welfare of the citizens.
We fully understand the difficulties fellow citizens face every day. We know you have to endure the high cost of basic needs, daily increases in prices of goods and services, labour laws that are not enforced to protect the workers and the pension benefits that have lost value or not paid long after one has retired.
Your struggles have not gone unnoticed. When we form government in August with your help, we shall meet your needs with real solutions rather than deceitful promises of creating millions of jobs and fake re-opening of factories each election year.
As articulated in our 2021-2026 Manifesto, our umbrella program, the Jobs Agenda for Zambia (JAZ), will seek to;
(i) create jobs;
(ii) raise productivity; and
(iii) include vulnerable groups like women and those living with disabilities.
In part, we shall tackle Zambia’s jobs challenge through several initiatives such as Community Savings and Loans Associations, Youth Enterprise Services (YES) Program, and the Apprenticeship Support Program.
Given that micro and small enterprises employ most of the workforce, this jobs agenda has close synergies with our policies on promoting micro, small and medium enterprises.
We shall also address the high cost of living and make labour laws more employee-focused. We shall strengthen the labour inspectorate and give it more power to penalise employers that are mistreating employees.
We will also strengthen the pension system and harmonise it with good practices, such as the right to access your contributions before retirement. This is a priority for us that all the pension schemes will have the same rules of pension administration that will focus on providing a good retirement package for our hardworking citizens.
There is a lot of work to be done, including reducing PAYE. We must also meet the needs of the disabled labour force, address drivers of informality and ultimately end slave wages and improve working conditions.
Above all, we shall unleash the full potential of the Zambian labour force by creating more and better-paying jobs through the promotion of labour-intensive sectors and increasing labour productivity or simply output per worker.
As you observe this labour day, UPND will, in summary, reform the pension system including NAPSA, strengthen labour laws to protect the workers against abusive employers and reduce PAYE as we create more jobs through YES.
HH aka Bally