Salt Sana – When Too Much Salt Ruins Everything
By Montesquieu Mulenga.
Just as food becomes unhealthy when it has too much salt, a country’s economy becomes unhealthy when the systems that support growth are weakened. Salt, in small amounts, brings flavour. But too much becomes destructive, raising blood pressure, straining the heart, and damaging vital organs.
In the same way, many citizens argue that certain national challenges have acted like salt sana (too much salt) sprinkled over the economy, affecting institutions, fairness, and opportunities:
1. Load Shedding – The High Blood Pressure of the Economy
Too much salt raises blood pressure; too much load shedding raises business pressure.
Small enterprises cannot function reliably. Machines stop. Shops close early. Productivity collapses. Just like salt slowly harms the heart, power instability slowly harms the heart of the nation’s private sector.
2. High Fuel Prices – Salt in Every Wound
Salt stings when it enters cuts.
High fuel prices sting every business transaction:
• transport becomes expensive
• goods become unaffordable
• profit margins shrink
Even the slightest disruption, a delayed truck, a price shift, becomes painful.
3. Concerns About Tribalism, Nepotism, and Uneven Access – A Sour Aftertaste
People often say too much salt removes the natural taste of food.
Likewise, public concerns about tribalism and nepotism can remove the sense of fairness from national life. When citizens believe opportunities depend on connections and your last name rather than competence, confidence in institutions erodes.
4. Public Concerns About Corruption – The Salt That Slowly Damages the System
Just as excess salt weakens vital organs over time, practices of corruption weaken national institutions.
Commonly discussed concerns include:
a) Procurement Concerns in the Health Sector
Most, if not all, medicine-supply contracts linked to the Ministry of Health (Zambia) repeatedly go to the same networks, raising questions about transparency.
b) Mining Licences and Concessions
In the Ministry of Mines (Zambia), public debate often focuses on licences or concessions allegedly favouring individuals perceived to be close to political power.
c) Energy Pricing and Power Trade
Fuel is expensive, and many citizens believe inflated pricing creates room for hidden beneficiaries.
Concerns have also been raised about the pricing of electricity sold Petrodex and Kanona Energy, and how it is later resold to the Democratic Republic of the Congo at a higher premium.
People often ask: Who benefits? Those close to power, salt sana.
5. Fewer Opportunities for Local Businesses – A Restricted Diet
A diet overloaded with salt is unhealthy, but a diet with no nourishment is just as dangerous.
When locals struggle to access meaningful opportunities, the “meal” of the economy feels empty. Entrepreneurs feel starved of support, networks, and capital.
6. Limited Investment in Capital Projects – Malnutrition for National Growth
Salt sana does not build muscle, bone, or strength. Capital projects, roads, factories, energy infrastructure, irrigation, and technology, are the nutrients that build a strong economy.
Without consistent investment, growth becomes malnourished, fragile, and slow.
A nation cannot grow on oversalted promises.
Empty seasoning does not build roads, power industries, or feed families.
It only masks the bitterness of failure.
A nation needs truth.
It needs justice.
It needs leaders who season with care,
leaders who understand that every decision should benefit the lives of millions not their friends.
What it does not need
are rulers who drown the pot to feed their friends, who sprinkle opportunity only on the plates of the well-connected, and expect the rest of the country to smile through the bitterness.
Zambia deserves a meal cooked with honesty, fairness, and vision, not one oversalted by greed and carelessness.