EDITORIAL | No President Uses Personal Money; It is Our Money

 EDITORIAL | No President Uses Personal Money; It is Our Money.

Zambia has a civic literacy problem.

When President Hakainde Hichilema credited Edgar Lungu for the Kazungula Bridge, some saw humility. Others saw weakness. A section of the Patriotic Front framed it as proof that the current administration survives on “finishing ECL projects.” Meanwhile, on the other side, some UPND cadres continue to speak as though free education, increased bursaries, and expanded CDF allocations are personal gifts from Hichilema

Both narratives are wrong.

Kazungula Bridge was not built with Edgar Lungu’s personal money. Free education is not funded from Hichilema’s bank account. CDF does not come from a party vault. These are public resources. Taxpayer money. Borrowed funds that future taxpayers will repay. Mineral revenues generated from national assets.

Presidents do not donate development. They administer it.

A functioning democracy rests on a simple principle: citizens pool resources through taxes and national revenue, then elect leaders to manage those resources efficiently, lawfully and strategically. Roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, energy plants and social protection programmes are outputs of public finance. They belong to the Republic, not to individuals.

This confusion is dangerous.

When PF supporters say “HH is just commissioning Lungu’s projects,” they imply that projects belong to a former president. They do not. Government projects outlive administrations. Policy cycles overlap. Procurement spans years. Financing agreements are negotiated under one leader and completed under another. This is institutional continuity, not political theft.

Equally troubling is the hero-worship framing from some ruling party sympathizers who speak of free education as though it were a presidential donation. Free education is a budgetary decision. It reallocates public resources toward households. It is financed through taxes, mineral royalties, customs duties, domestic borrowing and external financing frameworks. Citizens are paying for it collectively.

A mature electorate understands this.

The President is a steward. So was his predecessor. So will the next one be.

Crediting a previous administration for initiating a project is not surrender. It is governance maturity. It signals institutional respect. Zambia’s development cannot restart every five years. If every new administration cancelled everything begun before it, the country would stagnate permanently.

The deeper issue is civic culture.

Political marketing has conditioned citizens to think in personalities rather than systems. Supporters defend “their” president as if defending a benefactor. Opponents attack projects as if punishing a rival. The result is a distorted public conversation where infrastructure is reduced to political trophies.

Kazungula Bridge is a trade corridor linking Zambia to regional markets. It is not a campaign billboard. Free education is a fiscal policy choice. It is not a gift basket. CDF expansion is decentralised public finance reform. It is not party generosity.

We elect presidents to manage national assets, negotiate trade corridors, restructure debt, stabilize currency, attract investment, and allocate budgets. If they do so effectively, they deserve credit for competence. If they fail, they deserve criticism for mismanagement. But none of them deserve to be mythologized as donors.

Zambia does not need political benefactors. It needs disciplined managers of public capital.

Public money must be treated as sacred. Leaders must be evaluated on efficiency, transparency, and economic outcomes, not on personality cults.

The bridge stands because Zambia and Botswana invested public resources across administrations. Free education exists because Parliament appropriated funds. CDF expanded because fiscal space was created and priorities shifted.

That is how republics function.

The sooner citizens understand that development is financed by their taxes and resources, not by presidential charity, the healthier Zambia’s democracy will become.

© The People’s Brief | Editor-in-Chief