By Emmanuel Chilekwa
REALITIES OF THIS LIFE – IT’S NOT BALLY’S PROBLEM THAT ECONOMY IS BITING
■ Be the solution, not the problem
■ Life has always been challenging from time immemorial
■ Public leaders go in to serve their interests
■ No government will deliver breakfast, lunch to your table
■ Blaming Bally for hardships is just a personal scapegoat
This morning, let me speak some hard reality truth and make somebody see things positively : economic hardships have always been the same, from time immemorial – what needs to change is our attitude, actions to the challenges.
If in 1964 things were better when we had our own POUND currency, when we had 100% free education, we could all have been filthy rich as offsprings of our rich parents. But still, there were challenges.
During KK’s time, he even used to give us mealie meal coupons (6 per family), you just present the coupon at ZCBC and you get your 50kg mealie meal bag. So each family had 300kg of FREE mealie meal, at government expense. But even then, our parents had economic challenges that’s why government chipped in to alleviate challenges.
Came 1991, democracy reintroduced. FTJ’s first word was “are you ready to sacrifice?” And we all sang one answer in unison response:Yeeeees !!! And the hour of economic liberation really never came as the MMD promised. More jobs were lost and hundreds of State companies were sold to private capitalists – and that’s the genesis of ever increasing unemployment rates, increased thefts and looting or plunder. It was in this time that public officers learnt to loot public resources using and available window. And that’s what prompted late President, Levy Patrick Mwanawasa to resign – citing rampant CORRUPTION.
Then PF came to power in 2011 on the backbone of more money, more jobs, lower taxes. Did these promises come to bear? It’s debatable. Still the poor lot increased, more street children and 10 years later, the citizens decided to chuck PF out.
In 2021, change was made (courtesy of the youths) who were promised to either be in school or at work, mealie meal at K50, then 8 bags of fertilizer per farmer, strengthened Kwacha against the Dollar (by 14hours), rule of law – alas, now you’re seeing arrests being made when a barber man just produces a video complaining about how tough the economic situation is, so best is to just ignore there are hardships or just keep quiet to fool those in leadership and at hypocritical level – sing praises even if you dont know what to praise them for. Praise them for the increased hardships. Now you understand that the more we change, the more things remain the same or even get worse.
Now therefore, what should one do? Here are my recommendations:
■ Never think change of government will change your household poverty;
■ Change of household poverty is a personal effort, it’s not government task to buy you breakfast or lunch;
■ If life has been better than today, most of us could have bought streets lined up with hundreds of properties, or bought helicopters, farms etc. The fact that we failed to do that since 1964 means life has long being full of economic challenges;
■ It’s not Bally’s problem that you and me are suffering. Problem is personal – how do we see and seize opportunities? Even on a rubbish dump, there are opportunities you can utilise.
■ Learn to put time to research for development. Stop spending time complaining. That’s wasting precious time in negativity energy;
■ There’s no government on earth which provides you personal development (Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya is long dead, he’s the only leader who looked at family and personal level challenges);
■ Realise that all public leaders in government go in to eat, to serve their friends and families and you the nonentity whom they use as a mere ladder to attain their selfish grandiose personal mission remain ku wire, gnashing your teeth in pungent poverty pangs;
■ If you are a believer, and you see everyone is complaining, don’t join the chorus of complainants, you be the solution to the problems. Read about Joseph of the Bible. It’s when things or situation is dire, desperate, helpless that Believers – who are the salt of the earth, become providers. Unfortunately, Believers tend to dwarf themselves and give space to earthists to help them live better, that’s abomination.
To end my presentation, am saying : watch and pray, wake up, dress up and show up. You’re not a tree to be at the same location of problems or challenges – move, if need be, relocate to anywhere you believe is better for you.
Don’t be a loud speaker of others’ problems or challenges – you’re not Chilufya Tayali the public lawyer, be in your own lane.
Chila muntu ne chiwa chakwe. S