NO MORE FRUGAL LEADERSHIP: MAY THE BEST TAKEOVER AND RULE

By Nyalubinge Ngwende
AS we have entered 2014, ZAMBIA does not deserve FRUGAL KIND of LEADERSHIP. At this time and era when NATIONS are making PROGRESS with GREAT IDEAS of CREATING NATIONAL WEALTH and their LEADERS are admired for taking 21st Century DECISIONS and INSPIRING their citizens to be ENGINEERS who forge TOOLS for production, ZAMBIA cannot afford to REMAIN BEHIND.

As we wake up this 2014, may we look to the GREATEST HOPE that our FAITH will not FAIL US to see DIVINE INTERVENTION for the WRONGS that those who were hard to hear made in 2011 when on that September 20th day went to vote for the PATRIOTIC FRONT.

May the SPIRIT of this GREAT NATION ARISE and SPREAD its STRONG WINGS and SOAR like an EAGLE!

SOLUTIONS to young people's problems of UNEMPLOYMENT must not be stage managed on television WITHOUT any SUSTAINABLE POLICY DIRECTION for JOB CREATION. CASUAL WORK must not be the PRIDE of ZAMBIA; the country needs CLEAR TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRAMS that have a MULTIPLIER EFFECT to give hope to every USEFUL YOUNG PERSON to see OPPORTUNITIES that are CLEAR and NOT GUESSES. WASTING OF RESOURCES on youth programs that GIVE LESS RESULTS must be ABANDONED forthwith. If Constituency Development Fund has not turned FORTUNES for young people to be PRODUCERS, may it be REDIRECTED to buy TRANSFER of KNOWLEDGE and SKILLS from China, India, Japan and Malaysia. We cannot have polytechnic institutions that NEVER INVENT or produce HUMAN RESOURCE able to forge not even DECORS for a MODERN BUILDING.

WE need NEW THINKING in ENERGY PROGRAMS that do not just take away space and change the RESOURCE BASE on which our RURAL ILK depend for their lives without giving them the PRIDE of OWNERSHIP. This country is a SHAME of its ENERGY DEVELOPMENT, power lines pass over several villages and that GRANDMOTHER will pass on not KNOWING ALTERNATIVE cooking energy, when all around her there are abundant means to produce the COMMODITY cheaply and put it in her hands.

NEW ENERGY PROJECTS must give our YOUNG PEOPLE hope like that of a TONGA boy in SOUTHERN PROVINCE who wakes up every morning DREAMING to be an animal husbandry expert or VET DOCTOR because he grows up UNDERSTANDING COWS and BULLS so WELL; It must EXUDE HOPE like that found in a NGONI boy that wakes up to be an ENTREPRENEUR in agriculture commodities like COTTON and GROUNDNUTS, because he grows up knowing the DYNAMICS of growing these CROPS.  

OUR ENERGY programs must INSPIRE young people to become part of the BREAKTHROUGHS—finding and engineering new sources from whatever material that exist around their BACKYARD like the BILL GATES of this WORLD that are putting everything that they turn their eyes into IMPROVING the COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY. Our graduates in ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING must be scouring our peripheral areas for OPPORTUNITIES to setup GREEN ENERGY projects to supply tourism sites, fisheries ice plants and wild fruit beverage processing plants. If it means stealing or buying technology so that our GRADUATES can have it, may ZAMBIA go into deeper DEBT than at this time when BORROWING is for paying back POLITICAL FRIENDS for favours they rendered during ELECTIONS!

This NATION needs ENTREPRENEUR opportunities that give a LUSAKA boy the courage to BECOME the RICHARD BRANSON—owner of the Virgin Group of Companies. If it means government finding a way to GROW such youths, then we need a MINISTER of YOUTH who does not just talk SPORTS or become a SANTA CLAUS of distributing money. We NEED to put MONEY in projects that are GROUND BREAKING and become MODELS of WEALTH and JOB CREATION.

The INSPIRATION for a GREEN REVOLUTION is already there on our NATION FLAG. MAY we invoke the spirit of our GREEN BACKGROUND of our FLAG to INSPIRE us doing something GREEN that will make this country PROUD.

BUT it must be realised that the PATRIOTIC FRONT lacks what it takes to do this. Already it has showed that the only way to BUILD our country is by running around to borrow. It is far apart from DIALOGUE so that it can LISTEN to citizens with the HEART FOR THE PEOPLE and HEARKEN PASSIONATELY and work together with the AFFECTED to find solutions to PREDICAMENTS. How would one mean if the IMPASSE with the NURSES has ended up in DISASTER? This was all the MISTAKE of taking WRONG DECISIONS. If government leaders create problems in an INSTITUTION that did not have problems and FAIL to RESOLVE those PROBLEMS, it becomes very HARD to see how they would identify INHERENT problems that have kept OPPORTUNITIES from its people.

There is NO COURAGE that CAN SURPASS that of THE HEART that BEATS for the GOOD LIFE of the PEOPLE

May the SPIRIT of this GREAT NATION ARISE and SPREAD its STRONG WINGS and SOAR like an EAGLE AGAIN!

All hope is not lost for new constitution in Zambia, but...

With signs so far, the Zambian government has tricks to stop the content of the draft constitution that unseats their interests from being included. However, the Technical Committee seems to know this so well and its members are not ready to be duped by those tricks

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

All hope is not lost for Zambia to finally have a constitution that reflects the desires of the people after 49 years of Independence, but threats abound as the technical committee constituted to write the document fights back government tricks to hijack the process and obliterate what for once could be Zambia’s best constitution.

Not long ago, Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba instructed the TC (Technical Committee) writing the constitution to print and sign 10 copies of the constitution for handing over to President Michael Sata.

The spokesperson of the committee Enerst Mwansa later issued a statement that the TC had refused to heed the instruction because it would be going against the terms of reference given to the committee. Mwansa asked the Justice Minister to arrange a meeting between the TC members and the appointing authority. 

One of the terms of reference President Sata gave the TC is that it is supposed to release the final draft of the constitution simultaneously to him and the general public.

However, Kabimba told the nation that Sata had directed that the committee signs and releases 10 copies of the document for purposes of handover.

GBM resignation: retribution for Sata’s ingratitude

The resignation of Zambia’s Defence Minister Geoffrey Mwamba from his position should not astonish anyone and should not be taken as a ‘choice of family over politics’ as he has portrayed it. It shows a feat of courage, but it is more to do with retribution for President Sata’s ingratitude to disrespect him for Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba and Post Newspaper Owner Fred M’membe 

President Michael Sata and Former Defence Minister Geoffrey Mwamba

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

According to Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba, his resignation as Zambia’s defence minister was a choice of family over political allegiance after a telephone altercation with President Michael Sata. This is after the defence minister visited his grandfather Paramount Chief-elect Chitimukulu, Henry Sosala, whom Sata does not want to ascend to the throne.

However, it appears completely a calculated retribution against Sata by GBM, as the big man is fondly known among political colleagues and those in the streets who revere him for his business acumen.

His resignation should not astonish us, and should not even be seen as a complete action of ‘blood is thicker than water’ stance. 

There is more to it than meets the eye emanating from deteriorating relationship between the former defence minister GBM and his counter party at the Ministry of Justice Wynter Kabimba, who seems to be President Sata’s henchman. 

GBM was the last person expected to ditch a top job in the Patriotic Front government barely two years in office. The opulent politician bankrolled President Sata’s 2011 election campaign including chartering a plane and rescuing the PF leader from being arrested for money laundering when he told  authorities that the money with a questionable source found in Sata’s Finance Bank account was in fact a gift from him. 

For some time the public has seen GBM as a close confidant to Sata. He has been linked to a number of contracts that have overlooked tender procedures, including a tender to transport controversial hundreds thousands of litres of government fuel to Malawi to help that country mourn its President Bingu Wamutharika who died of a cardiac problem. Apparently Wamutharika had hounded Sata out of Malawi, declaring him a persona-non-grata, when he went to meet his Taiwanese financiers from that country. The fuel donation for your enemy ‘s funeral could only be a cruel joke from President Sata, maybe mockingly saying ‘rest in peace to Bingu and welcome Joyce Banda’. Whatever, it still provided an opportunity to repay GBM. When people raised concern over the granting of GBM a contract to transport fuel without any tender procedures, State House insiders said Sata’s retort was: “let GBM recover his money”.

That is the kind of relationship Sata enjoyed with GBM. 

EFF Leader Julius Malema is a Divisive Demagogue

Although some people in Zambia admire South Africa Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema, the outspoken young politician is a divisive demagogue who does not practice what he preaches. He cannot speak for poor South Africans because his wealth seems to be a loot off government contracts

Malema is a dangerous Demagogue (source telegraph)

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Malema is a tax evader. When he talks of economic liberation, he does not speak for the poor but for himself and his cohort of the Economic Freedom Fighters.

In February this year his household goods went under the auction hammer in an attempt by the sheriff office to recover R16 million in tax debt he failed to remit to Sars (South Africa Revenue Services). This is after a report by audit firm PwC (Price Water House Coopers) revealed that the former ANC Youth League leader spent R291 000 on clothes at an Italian boutique store and more than R31 000 on Louis Vuitton designer clothes.

Apart from under declaring taxes to the South Africa tax authorities, Malema is highly believed to have made his fortune through corrupt activities involving Limpopo government contracts.

Malema  is powerful and influential, but his political objectives are misplaced; mostly driven by the selfish of improverished upbringing which has not yet matured to understand that poverty cannot be blamed on those who work to build their businesses.

Julius Malema is divisive figure and wants to emerge as a Madiba for South Africa’s economic emancipation. What he is to South Africa is not the asset Mandela was, has been and will remain to be in posterity, but a true replica of Adolf Hitler to German. Robert Mugabe in the neighbouring Zimbabwe could even be dwarfed by the damage Malema might wreck in Subsaharan Africa’s most developed country.

Fancying Opening Mansa Batteries: An Economic Myopia

Unless Spark Batteries evolves to the new technology, it may just be another political nostalgia that turns out a failed venture, like Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia which will soon be on rocks because it survives on government grant to produce and the customer who bought the fertiliser is the same government

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Zambia once produced dry cells at Mansa Batteries

When Mansa Batteries was closed, Luapula province in Northeast Zambia was left without any manufacturing industry. A lot of jobs were lost while the country lost its only dry cell making company.

Lately there has been some fancy about reopening the battery-making plant. The fancy is so high on the minds of the young people, who want employment in the Luapula province, and on the minds of politicians, who seek to garner political mileage out of the venture that gave Mansa a sparkle of economic development. The company built beautiful houses and accommodate its workers and gave the town a two storey building guest house where the affluent spent their evenings dinning and winning.

  

Vice president Guy Scott has announced plans by government to resuscitate Mansa Batteries.

While on a campaign trail in the just ended Mansa Central parliamentary by-election, Dr Scott said government envied that state owned companies like Mansa Batteries were brought to life like in it has done in the case of Nitrogen Chemicals.

Dr Scott told Mansa residents that government is convinced that there is still sufficient Manganese in Luapula Province to resuscitate Mansa Batteries.

Dr Scott believes by bringing to life Mansa Batteries, government will be fulfilling its promise of reducing unemployment levels in the province and the country as whole. “The PF government will now cut down on making rhetorical speeches about what it is able to do to concentrate on implementing developmental projects it has planned in fulfilling the promises it made to the people in the country.”

Sata Must Not Continue A Constitution Curse Zambia Has Suffered

When we say Zambia needs a good constitution with adjusted powers of leadership, the recent case of 160 nurses who were dismissed by a hubristic health minister is the reason why. In a country where the constitution serves the interests of its citizens and not protecting the selfishness of leadership, differences like protests over entitlements of working citizens are adjusted by legislative and judiciary establishments. In the end it was supposed to be the courts or parliament deciding over the fate of nurses and not brute force of ministers—Dr Joseph Kasonde and his Labour counterpart Fackson Shamenda

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

The political inheritance of this country remains a curse that makes the yet so near  people driven constitution continue to seem so far and unattainable from one political administration to another. 

 Through out its election campaigns in the opposition the Patriotic Front promised the Zambian people a good constitution. In fact, it gained more sympath from the electorates when it condemned the colossal sums of money that the Movement for Multi-party Democracy  was spending through the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) to amend the country’s 1996 constitution. 

The Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata also refused his members of parliament from participating in the NCC, while those who went ahead to defy the part position in the name of fulfilling their parlimentary duty were ostracised from the opposition party and tagged as rebel MPs who had joined the ruling MMD in the plunder of national resources while Zambians continued to wallow in poverty. 

At one public meeting, Sata even witnessed one of his confidants, Samuel Mukupa, tear a copy of NCC draft constitution, portraying it as a useless document that did not represent the aspirations of the people. Sata promised the country a new constitution adopted through a constituency should he be voted into office. The stance of Sata and his party attracted the sympathy and support of religious institutions like the Catholic Church, the civil society and workers among teachers and nurses.