I have for long been analysing how the Patriotic Front (PF) government has been handling issues and challenges our country is facing.
I have come to conclude that the PF government has no capacity to handle the challenges we are facing. The government has on several occasions failed to decisively resolve many national issues. This has caused anguish to many people in the country. I cannot believe this is our government; a government which does not inspire its people. It seems to be in its own world; pretending things are okay when in fact they are falling apart.
To make matters worse, President Edgar Lungu always shies away from addressing the nation on major issues affecting the country. He prefers remaining mute or speaking through proxies. The case in point is the gassing of Zambians by criminal elements aligned to his political party.
Look at how the PF government has handled the issue of gassing. It has struggled to handle this issue with five security wings at its disposal. Many people have lost their lives before the security wings could begin telling us that they have in their custody the key suspects. When this issue started in Chingola in late December 2019, the PF party, government, surrogate opposition parties and NGOs such as the Young African Leaders Initiative responded by blaming the opposition parties, in particular the United Party for National Development (UPND.
Instead of urging our security wings to swiftly investigate the matter and arrest the perpetrators, the government was politicking. It is disappointing for Zambia to have such a leadership. As I write this article, we are still hearing sporadic cases of gassing in the country. This shows that the PF government has failed even to provide security to its citizens and businesses.
Under the PF government, quasi-government and grant aided institutions have not been receiving funding on time and frequently. As a result, workers in these institutions have gone months without getting their salaries. If you look at museum workers, last year they went without pay for over eight or so months and the government never bothered. All it did was to threaten the union leaders with loss of employment. Council workers across the country also have gone for months without salary and the PF government seems not concerned about this too.
As I write this article, University of Zambia (UNZA) and Copperbelt University (CBU) employees have gone for a month without getting their salaries. These are critical government universities which have put the country on the world map. How could a serious government fail to fund in time such institutions?
In its usual way of doing things, the PF government does not take university education as a priority; by-elections are its priority. And to add salt to the wound, the Minister of Higher Education went on TV and radio last month, telling workers from these two universities not to behave like civil servants because they do not have a fixed pay day. This PF government is annoying because it even violets its own laws.
What the Minister of Higher Education was saying defies the PF Employment Act which says that the last pay day for every employee is the 5th of the next month. Does the Minister of Higher Education imply that the Employment Act applies only to civil servants and not UNZA and CBU employees? What type of leaders are these who eat first before those they lead have eaten? Even at home when food is a challenge, the father allows the children to eat first before he eats.
This is, however, not the case with the PF government and its officials. They eat first before the people they purport to serve eat. The PF government leaders have never gone without pay for a single month but they let other employees serving the country go for months without pay. This is not serving people but self-serving; Zambia needs a selfless leadership.
On the economic front, the PF government has terribly failed us. The economy is damaged and it is not growing. The debt is choking every sector of the economy and the government does not know how to put back the economy on its growth path. This government has failed to secure even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package because it has no capacity to implement reforms demanded by this institution.
Last month, when the Minister of Finance, Dr Bwalya Ng’andu, gave an update on the state of the economy, nothing substantive came from his mouth. He never articulated the way out of this economic doldrums but just lamented. As a result of failure to manage the economy, our Kwacha has continued to lose value to other currencies, unemployment is skyrocketing and poverty levels are increasing.
This PF government has failed us. It is high time Zambians realised that they have a leadership that is clueless; a leadership with no idea on how to tackle national issues but only insists on continuing to rule the people for its interests. It will be a scandal to allow PF in 2021 to continue at the helm of this country.
Even in a football match, if a player is tired, he/she is substituted. In 2021, let us substitute the PF with another party. And if the party that comes after PF also misbehaves, after 5 years Zambians should substitute that party too. Let us not vote on tribal lines in 2021; mukwasu (my relative) type of voting should not be encouraged. Let us vote for a team with a vision; mukwasu leadership has failed all of us.
The author is a lecturer at the University of Zambia, department of Library and Information Science.