By Fanny Kalonda
CITIZENS First president Harry Kalaba says late supply of farming inputs has put farmers in a very awkward situation.
He says the results will be catastrophic for the country.
Featuring on Diamond Live programme on Monday evening, Kalaba said President Hakainde Hichilema should have delegated his representation at COP 27 in Egypt and remained behind to deal with the late distribution of farming inputs which he said was a crisis given that heavy rains would affect areas with no proper roads.
“This thing of saying no they have to attend, Zambia is going to be present, there is nothing like that. Yes it is good for solidarity so that when you are presenting your case, when you are trying to get those monies for the green adaptation fund, and trying to tell the world that countries like Zambia need to be given resources to fight the effects of the carbon emissions that have hit us bad, yes you need to be there with the colleagues. But it is not at the expense of your farmers who might experience hunger in the next few months. Charity begins at home,” he said.
“But in this particular instance, it was just a question of advising the President that look we are having the late delivery of inputs and it has never happened in our country where you are having fertiliser being distributed in November. It is raining heavily and most of our feeder roads are bad. Transporters will have challenges in transporting seed, fertiliser. So I thought that the matters at COP27 could have been delegated to any other official to represent the President and government in particular. So really, what I expected myself was that there was going to be an issue of commanding ZNS, the Zambia Army, to begin helping in ensuring that since we are late, farming inputs reach farmers in time. It is a standard practice. It happens everywhere in the world. Our agriculture is rain fed agriculture so once the rains reaches a certain stage, it will be difficult for the crops to come out the way they should have come out. So there is a challenge clearly.”
Kalaba also called on the government to recapitalise Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia to stop importing fertiliser.
“One I appreciate the minister’s issues. It is good to appreciate that the farmer is in a very awkward position right now. Very awkward position and it will be catastrophic. We don’t know what will come out in this farming season. This is why we have been proposing ourselves [that] it is high time we stopped the importation of fertiliser. Because 58 years after independence I think what should be happening now is that we should be having our own fertiliser plants,” he said. “We should have Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia even suppling fertiliser to three provinces. In that way, it will help even as a pilot project. Let NCZ be recapitalised to begin to produce fertiliser even for Southern Province, North Western Province, Lusaka Province. Then after a year or so, government should be planning to open another fertiliser plant which can begin catering for Copperbelt, Central Province and so on.”
Kalaba said as President Hichilema held bilateral engagements in Egypt “there is a crisis that is brewing up in his backyard”.
“Look, bilateral engagements are very critical but we are talking about a crisis which is brewing back in your backyard. The President and the leadership were also in New York recently at the UN General Assembly. Those bilateral meetings were held,” Kalaba said.
“The point I’m trying to make is that even if the President did not travel to Egypt, the position papers were already handled by the Minister of Green Economy and Environment.”
And Kalaba said the country needs to start looking at what is best for it when dealing with economic matters.
He said when getting into power, the new dawn administration had the people’s goodwill that they should have used to attract investment around the country.
Kalaba said if done well, the country would have not needed the IMF package given also the resources in the mining sector.
“We have lost according to experts. We have lost about US $3.8 billion as a result of the tax holidays we have given those mining firms. If we didn’t do that we didn’t even need to go to the IMF to get that package. The goodwill, the capital called goodwill which the new dawn had – remember they came into government with over 60 per cent of the confidence of Zambian people. And as a result of that, that goodwill was going to propel them to go to India. They were going to be given resources. [John Pombe] Magufuli in Tanzania, president Magufuli in Tanzania he didn’t rush to the IMF, no. We went to the mines, plugged the holes that were…” said Kalaba. “…the IMF now they are giving you conditions which will be quite severe for our country. We need to begin looking at what is good for us. That is why countries like Rwanda begin to get examples for us. There they have what they call homegrown solutions. We should understand our challenges. Yes there were issues of credibility coming in, we had all these loans. That is why we need to begin thinking outside the box. We need to understand that just the power of goodwill, China itself, China alone would have given Zambia a lot of money. But because we want to do things in the usual manner, and expect a different result, we need to be checked. We do not invest a lot of time in research. We have to research, we have to understand the challenges that we have.”
And Kalaba said he does not practice politics of character assassination.
“I am a very peaceful person myself. And my politics that I practice, have never been politics of character assassination. I am one that is a peacemaker. When I just see that these things are not helping the nation, I do not indulge in footless endeavours. I indulge in things that are going to take the country to where it should be. We want Zambians to appreciate issue-based politics,” said Kalaba.