Be worried and very, very afraid: the money mongers and profiteers are here!
By Azwell Banda
The lust to find money anywhere for them to expand their production for their exports, and the need to find profitable markets for what they produce, will keep Hakainde Hichilema forever in the skies, for ever travelling abroad. Welcome to a Zambia governed by the profit mongers!
Hichilema, like all profit mongers all over the world, suffers from a pathological craving to find money, markets, establish cheaper sources of inputs all over the world so as to grow their profits. When they fail to do this, they shrink and die. HH will increase the frequency of the trips abroad. The spokesperson of his party has confirmed this costly fact. He needs to search for money, abroad. That is what he actually got elected for.
We now have a government openly championing money and profits above human life, no matter how well concealed this may be, in their language and lies. If it cannot return a profit, it is not worthy investing in. If it grows debt, even if the money borrowed saves human life, don’t do it.
Governments all over the world use their immense power to levy taxes, borrow, and regulate economic and social life to serve human life, and save it. Governments cannot be liquidated, so their capacity to borrow is theoretically infinite. Because of this unique quality, governments can and must protect human life without fail, because they can always source money anytime, including simply by printing new money if all else fails, to grease the real economy and save human life. This is why the most powerful government in the world, the United States federal government, is the most indebted government in the world: it has the power to grow its debt, and use debt to advance the interests of rich Americans.
HH and his fellow profit mongers in the UPND have introduced in the Zambian government a blunt and cruel cash mentality: if it does not save money, don’t do it! The actual polite wording is “if it does not make economic sense, it is not worthy doing”.
Let us look at how these money lovers in government are promoting the culture of the primacy and superiority of money over human life. An excellent example for which millions of Zambians are already paying for, and for which a good number will die from, is in the export of food.
There are all warning signs that Zambia, like several other countries in this southern African sub region affected by poor rains, storms, floods and pests are headed for massive food shortages. In fact, 1.6 million Zambians are already facing and experiencing starvation. Hichilema, through his Minister of Agriculture, Reuben Mtolo Phiri, has authorised the export of 1,177,500 metric tonnes of maize. They have also authorised the export of bran, soya beans and soya cake. Without explaining exactly how, Mtolo Phiri has said the government will make sure food exports do not affect local food supply and prices. He insists there will be no shortages of food next year due to poor harvests this year. Openly contradicting himself, Mtolo Phiri has emphatically stated that the government will not ban food exports because this would be setting a very bad precedent; it would be interfering with market mechanisms for setting the prices of food. There can be no better proof of the callous disregard for human life than a government exporting so much food at a time when a significant percentage of its own citizens are already starving!
All our farmers must be properly incentivised and rewarded for their labour and produce. The government must buy our current food surplus from farmers at good prices, provide food to starving Zambians and secure sufficient food for the extreme food deficit situation Zambia will face in 2023 and beyond, by controlling food exports. This, sadly will not happen; our government has rich farmers who must make a killing from food exports, at the expense of Zambian lives. Food has become very expensive, since HH became president.
Quite arrogantly, finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane informed Zambians that in fact the current budget had cut out subsidies from petroleum products. Without disputing the fact that this would have a negative impact on inflation and would obviously raise the cost of living, the usual flat defences of eliminating government debt and that “in the medium to long term, this is the right thing to do” were offered, while all who care to know understood that this was an IMF austerity condition on Zambia, if the IMF was to offer Zambia its loan, and facilitate the negotiations with Zambia’s creditors, thus allowing inflows of money into Zambia. We have in fact been assured that soon there will be so many dollars flowing into the country Zambians will not know what to do with them!
Our national road infrastructure is in a horrible state. It is worse for rural roads, as the parts of the country affected by storms and flooding so very well revealed. Life in rural Zambia is gruellingly horrible and tough. Falling ill, being an expectant mother, or finding oneself involved in an accident and requiring urgent medical attention all require transport to clinics and hospitals usually quite far from villages. The state of the roads in the rural areas mean that very few people are willing to start passenger transport businesses. These rural roads are clearly not ‘economically viable’. These rural roads are very far from being ‘enablers for economic development’!
Very bluntly, Hichilema’s Ministry of Finance has said this, about roads: “The new dawn administration is committed to infrastructure development as it is an enabler for economic growth. In this regard, priority will be given to rehabilitate economically beneficial roads which are in a bad shape. A cost benefit analysis will be undertaken to consider the sequencing of works, given the limited resources and huge infrastructure gap. Some roads that are economically viable will be considered for Public Private Partnership models to leverage financing from the private sector.”
In a country with a huge chunk of its population still locked up in the rural areas trapped in almost prehistoric times, HH and his friends’ tenure in government is clearly going to push our rural areas deeper into prehistoric times! There is no money to be made, in the medium to long term, by investing in good tarred rural roads connecting villages. The wisdom that good infrastructure attracts advanced economic activities apparently is alien to HH and his friends. He needs to visit China, and very soon too, to learn what comes first: good infrastructure or economic development?
It is in the matter of employment of health workers and teachers that the intersection of political lies and greed for money has found a most pitiable expression. HH and his friends have been celebrating their promise and announcement of employment of 30,000 teachers and 11,200 health workers every day since late last year. It has not happened. It is not going to happen. Why? Because as HH and Situmbeko themselves have explained, the Zambian government has no money. Situmbeko has in fact explained that removal of subsidies from fuels does not release any money; it merely stops the mounting debt government owes fuel suppliers!
Aware of this cruel fact, however, Situmbeko and his boss HH have been parroting the cruel song that “removing subsidies from fuels makes money available for investments in social services including education and health, and the employment of many workers” crudely paraphrased. They are both lying. As things stand, they cannot employ the 30,000 teachers and 11,200 health workers because they have not been looking for any new money to do this! I would be traumatised if the IMF were to give HH the money to employ these vital workers.
It is time to be worried, and to be afraid: in one of the world’s most impoverished countries we have elected a party into government with a pathological craving for money and profits, rather than saving human lives. The sooner the majority of us wake up from the slumber induced by the seductive lies HH and the UPND used to win the elections, the better for the country. The profiteers are in government.
Send comments to: banda.azwell@gmail.com.