AMB. EMMANUEL MWAMBA WROTE;
It’s business as usual in Lusaka CBD town on this ChristmasDay. I spent time to speak to our traders and tried to understand the difficulties they are going through and the orders to vacate the streets.
I decided to pen the following;
Government for the rich and a Special Christmas Gift for the Poor
BY AMB. EMMANUEL MWAMBA
On this Christmas Day, I am in the Lusaka City CBD.
Nangu tapasoswa.
They have given huge tax concessions to the mine houses and have reduced corporate tax for companies.
Yet they have increased fuel prices, a matter that directly affects our people adversely.
And they will soon increase electricity tariffs.
Both fuel and electricity products are primary in-puts in the production part of the economy and will cause a spiral of commodity price increases and high cost of living.
They have refused to implement their social spending pledges on the poor such as free education.
They have announced that they are reducing the social spending on Farmer-Input Programme (FISP) from 2.8% of GDP to 1%.
This means that the number of beneficiaries of the FISP Programme will drop significantly.
Yet it is these small holder farmers that are responsible for bumper harvests,year in, year out.
The poor have no reprieve or relief.
They blame the former ruling party everyday, for everything, yet they hold the steering wheel of this country.
Latest victims of their ‘protect-the-rich policies’ are;-traders.
They call them all sorts of names, and blame them for the filth, dirt and confusion in town.
They are now saying the vendors are carriers or vectors of cholera and other water-borne diseases rife in rain season.
They won’t blame the Lusaka City Council that fails to collect garbage, construct public toilets, clear drainages and sweep streets.
The owners of the shops where they collect political bribes have told them that their corridors are blocked, as their counterparts, the former corrupt politicians were cowards and couldn’t act. And they yield!
Even when there are no adequate trading spaces, and there are more traders than the empty spaces in the markets, they give our people two-days notice to vacate the CBD!
And our people will go where? They don’t care!
And their supporters insult than engage in a reasonable discussion.
It is both the lives and livelihood of our people at stake. Both buyers and traders.
But more importantly, what needs to be cured is the economy.
The rise of street vendors, streets kids, shacks and slams, are the negative symptoms of a bad economy, and a leadership keen to implement economic systems that do not respond to the needs of the poor.
This Christmas, the poor have received price increases and evictions.
Merry Christmas to you all.
