By Sean Tembo – PeP President
1. One of the key characteristics of a failed Government is lethargy. That is a lack of energy and enthusiasm to get things done quickly. Dragging your feet. Procrastinating. Having a bureaucratic mindset. Always telling yourself that l’ll do it tomorrow even if it can be done today. That is exactly the disease that appears to have afflicted our newly elected President, His Excellency Mr Hakainde Sammy Hichilema.
2. It has been more than 10 days since President Hichilema won the 2021 general elections, and it has been 15 years since he started aspiring to be Republican President. The general expectation is that with all that ample time, President Hichilema should have been ready to govern and should’ve hit the ground running. The starting point to governing a nation such as Zambia is to appoint a cabinet so that you can begin to roll out your policies. But it’s quiet. No cabinet in place up to now. The question is how difficult is it to announce a cabinet?
3. Well, it all depends on whether one was ready to govern or not. In this particular instance, it appears that the electoral victory came as a surprise to Mr Hichilema. What he had prepared was an election petition and a media statement of how unfair the election was. So to replace his drafted election petition with a cabinet appears to be a struggle for him. He seems to be in a state of functional paralysis. He is unable to move FORWARD. But at what expense to the nation?
4. You see, this country has had a leadership vacuum for more than
3 months now, ever since cabinet was dissolved. In other words, it has been operating on autopilot. Meanwhile we are besieged with numerous national problems; An economy on the verge of collapse. The pandemic. An education calendar that is in turmoil. Ever escalating cost of living. Default on Eurobond interest payments. Impasse in the mining sector at KCM and Mopani. No medicines in our hospitals. The list of urgent national matters goes on and on.
5. Our expectation is that President Hakainde Hichilema would roll out his cabinet so that his Government can begin to address some of these issues and give hope to the Zambian people. But instead the President is busy on social media making promises to the youth. Well sir, you’ve had 15 years of making promises. Don’t you think it’s now time to roll up your sleeves, get behind a desk and get some work done? Time to start fulfilling those promises? A cabinet is not something that is cast in concrete and steel. A cabinet can always be reshuffled at a later time. So the President is wasting his time trying to draft a perfect cabinet. In fact there is no such thing as a perfect cabinet because the true character of some of the candidates will only be revealed once they have been appointed and given power.
6. It appears to me that our new President is too immersed in trifles that he is unable to focus on the big picture. What we want sir is an economic turnaround so that the high cost of living can come down, so that our people can have gainful employment, so that our youths can be assisted with small empowerment loans to start businesses, so that our debt default can be corrected, so that there can be medicines in our hospitals and clinics. That’s the bigger picture that we want sir. We are not interested in trifles such as you insisting to ride your Nissan Infinite or whatever it is you call your vehicle, instead of the officially designated Mercedes Benz. That is a populist move sir, and history is replete with evidence that 10 out of 10 populist leaders tend to be incompetent and lack the necessary energy and enthusiasm needed to get things done. They are lethargic. Don’t be populist sir. Just ride the Mercedes Benz, fly the Gulfstream G650 presidential jet, enjoy State House lawns. Those are your perks. You deserve them. You need to enjoy them. I believe that l would be speaking on behalf of 18 million other Zambians when l say that if you want to please us, just deliver on your promises instead of engaging in populist antics of riding your Nissan Infinite.
Godspeed and please pull up your socks sir.
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SET 26.08.2021