Subsidies withdraw, a better view from the past

Recently the government of President Sata in Zambia removed subsidies on fuel, maize and rolled back similar incentives on farm inputs. A look back at the negative effects similar measures undertaken in the 1990s produced gives little hope that the outcome will be different this time around

 By Nyalubinge Ngwende

To have a better view of something you need to step back and look at it from a distance. Therefore to get a better view of how a country’s economic policies will affect the present and future just as well require the prudence of stepping back. In this case taking a back step means looking at things from recent history. 

It is from a look into history that we can also draw some vital lessons to make predictable outcomes of the decision by President Michael Sata’s Patriotic Front government to remove subsidies on maize, fuel and roll back the incentives on farming inputs.

Zambia is not removing subsidies for the first time and there effects, apart from the political backlash that follows, are well documented in several reports.

In 1991, after wrestling power from UNIP’s Kenneth Kaunda, MMD President (late) Frederick Chiluba went for absolute removal of subsidies on all essential commodities, including farming inputs.

Chiluba was a proponent of a free market economy and wanted all sectors of the economy, including agriculture, to play to the vagaries of the market. Those austere measures were not as kind.

While subsidies were over used or misused under the UNIP regime, taking away funds necessary for development from other vital sectors, the haste removal of these economic incentives in the first three years of the MMD wrought unspeakable misery among the people and held back the country’s Human Development values.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) after 1990, when Chiluba took office and effected widespread economic changes including removal of subsidies, Zambia fell from 0.423 value position in 1985 to 0.345 in 2000 on the Human Development Index (HDI) when he left office. The country lumbered behind in all social service delivery and continued to face high maternal and infant mortality rates which were all above a 150 per 1000, while enrolment and completion rates were poor.

In addition, the country’s infrastructure development remained stagnant, while the privatisation of State Owned Enterprises left most of the employable population jobless. Chiluba chose to dish out cash to churches and friends in millions while he asked the masses to sacrifice. Corruption also increased.

Like Chiluba, Sata wants to use the money saved from subsidies to build the country’s roads, schools and health facilities. He has even gone to tell the country that subsidies do not benefit the poor people, with various statements coming from the government spokesperson, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Service minister Kennedy, that subsidies only made the rich richer while the poor were becoming poorer.

The subsidies being removed were introduced by Mwanawasa who succeeded Chiluba in 2001. The

Mwanawasa reintroduced farm subsidies in 2003

subsidies continued under Rupiah Banda who had taken over presidency in a mid-term election in 2008 following the death of Mwanawasa.

According to the Zambia Human Development Index Report for 2011, the country climbed through the development index from 0.0345 in 2000 to 0.395 in 2010, a score slightly above the average of 0.389 for the sub-Saharan Africa. 

Among major successes that the report attributes these economic development gains includes a growth in the agriculture sector.

At the same time the country also recorded an increase in the access to education, with the primary school enrolment and completion rates, which were at 75% and 63%, respectively, in 1999 rising to 130 and 91, respectively, in 2007. Access to health facilities also recorded tremendous improvement, with the country’s hope to score on some of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) looking brighter.

“The 2011 report documents a decade of noteworthy improvements in health and basic education services in Zambia. Infrastructure has produced development in these sectors has produced more schools, hospitals and health clinics across the country,” says the ZHDR titled ‘Service Delivery for Sustainable Human Development’.

“Essential drugs for immunisation, HIV, malaria and tuberculosis are more readily available, including for those previously not able to afford them,” says UNDP resident representative Kani Wignaraja in her foreword for the report. 

UNDP Country representative Wigranja

She further says that desks and learning materials have been made available, including importantly to community schools which is seen as an important catchment of school-goers.

“As a result of measures like this, some health and education outcome measures have improved: maternal and child mortality are on the decline, albeit slowly; school enrolment has reached universal coverage while school completion rates are on the rise.” 

The report also fingers the agriculture as another economic sector that recorded positive growth, attributed to good government policies coupled with natural conditions that saw an increase in yields of maize and other non-traditional crops. 

At the same the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says in 2010 Zambia was considered the sixth best country in Africa for doing business, with the country receiving an annual average of US$211 million from 1995 to 2005, while the figure rose to US$960 million between 2006 to 2009.

It is on this positive growth, though with some gaps that needed to be addressed the Patriotic Front took over government from the MMD on September 23, 2011.

These gains over the past ten years shared between Mwanawasa and Banda of the MMD took place under what UNDP calls good government policies.

The two experiences under the MMD, gives a comparative look at the negative effects that the removal of subsidies produced in the country under Chiluba and the benefits the introduction of subsidies produced in thelast ten years that Mwanawasa shared with Banda.

The experience in the removal of subsidies under Chiluba can be associated with the outcome of the similar economic measures the current Patriotic Front government has embarked upon.

The similarity is glaring in that the affected subsidies include those on agriculture inputs, which in the past seven years gave back the country the pride it had earlier lost to feed its own people and overtime stabilised prices for essential commodities and wages for public workers.

Unless Sata uses negative effects produced by the removal of subsidies under Chiluba as a lesson of a bad experience and find a better way to handle his case, his measures to removal subsidies may just mess up the gains of the last 10 years.

Under Chiluba the unsuccessful proper use of the money taken from subsidies included financing developmental projects which were hurriedly launched and hastily implemented, resulting in shoddy works due to poor supervision.

It is doubted if the savings from subsidy removal in Zambia by Sata today will be properly used when we are seeing the weakening of institutions of governance with the President running the country by decree. 

Already, the government high levels of immorality in misusing the public tax money include induced by-elections, using deputy ministers’ positions to buy opposition MPs and a bloated public service of non-essential employees following the creation of new districts which were not budgeted for. 

Sata could not even wait to undertake changes in the Foreign Service, pulling out almost all envoys and replaced them with his family in some posts without properly budgeting for the exercise.

It is also not known how government is compensating people the President has appointed to the civil service as permanent secretaries and only fire them the next day before they even perform a single duty. These jobs go with a five year contract and termination may imply giving the disappointed appointee full benefits.

Further Sata’s government has failed to tell the country how much money he has spent so far for these unplanned actions, but it has taken to blame the huge budgetary consumption on fuel and maize subsidies which has been the only practical way the national cake was equitably distributed.

There is also an emerging trend of donating to churches, with the country being told that President Sata provided the money. It is not known if this is coming from his pocket money or public coffers. It is subtle corruption, but it is difficult to classify it as such.

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Wynter Called Kenneth Kaunda a Divisive Hypocrite!

It is strange today how first republican president Kenneth Kaunda is finding it warm to sit among the PF cadres, like Wynter Kabimba. And I do not even know where people like Kabimba are getting the conscious to sing praises about KK as a founding father.

Here is what Kabimba said about Kaunda in 2010 (Kaunda is a hypocrite, divisive failure – Kabimba, Mon 04 Jan. 2010, By George Chellah)

PATRIOTIC Front (PF) Secretary General Wynter Kabimba has described Dr Kenneth Kaunda as a hypocrite and divisive failure who is acting for self-preservation.

Commenting on Dr Kaunda's attack on former defence minister George Mpombo that he has been barking like anything at President Rupiah Banda, Kabimba said there was no former head of state within the SADC region that has been able to act in such a format of character mutation as Dr Kaunda has been doing. He said one of the things that had been very clear after Dr Kaunda left office was that he had not emulated his contemporaries in the region on the role of former heads of state.

He said Dr Kaunda needed to learn from his colleagues on how they stabilised their countries in the transition from one party state to democracy or multi-partyism.

"I have in mind people like the late Julius Nyerere who was a very stabilising factor in Tanzania, Léopold Senghor of Senegal, the recent icon Nelson Mandela, the man Kaunda fought for him to be liberated and how he has been a stabilising factor in South Africa after he left office and Sir Ketumile Masire of Botswana," Kabimba said. "But Kaunda has been very divisive.

He has played a role of a divider rather than a uniting factor amongst Zambians. For him to refer to Mpombo as a person who has been barking like anything and in the same statement call upon Zambians to live under the banner of One Zambia One Nation is hypocritical."

Kabimba said by virtue of coming out the way he did against Mpombo, Dr Kaunda had already taken a side.

"He is not reconciling Rupiah and Mpombo. Look at Kaunda's role, how he has killed UNIP, the party he led for a long time. It's because of him having played a divisive role. He left UNIP and anointed the late Kebby Musokotwane as president. After a couple of years because of his insatiable appetite for power, he went back to UNIP and overthrew the man he anointed - Kebby Musokotwane," Kabimba said. "And UNIP has gone into extinction ever since. Finally, he anoints his son Tilyenji as president of UNIP. Another dividing factor in that party. Now we hear that the ka son is in Matero in sandals trying to organise the party, what UNIP is in Matero now for him to mobilise?"

Wynter Kabimba

Kabimba said Dr Kaunda's divisive tendencies could be traced way back to the early 1990s.
"In 1996, he supported the late Dean Mung'omba against Chiluba, in 2001 he shifted his support to the late Anderson Mazoka against Levy Mwanawasa. In fact, his preferences were Mazoka, Nevers Mumba and his son Tilyenji. In 2006 he shifted again…(he supported Hakainde Hichilema) two years down the line after Levy's death he shifted his support to Rupiah," Kabimba said.

"But even as he shifted his support to Rupiah on one hand, on the other hand he attempted to broker an alliance between UPND and PF against Rupiah the person he has supported. Maybe let me explain this, one of the reasons why the alliance between PF and UPND could not hold then was because of the dividing role Kaunda played.

"The reason why the current pact is holding now is because we have made it very clear that we don't want him to play a role. The man is unpredictable and he doesn't mean well. He is acting for self-preservation. I have no doubt that when the PF-UPND pact forms the next government, Kaunda will shift again and support the PF-UPND government."

Kabimba said Dr Kaunda had even failed to run the Kenneth Kaunda Foundation effectively.

"His AIDS foundation is now going into extinction despite the goodwill and huge amounts of investment money into it. All this is because the man has been divorced from this society. Kaunda is no longer perceived in that dimension uniting factor by a larger part of society. No wonder whatever he has tried has failed," Kabimba said. "Mandela is running various foundations including the Mandela foundation, which is internationally recognised.

Nyerere was chairman of the South-to-South Commission, which was recognised internationally up to the time of his death. Kaunda doesn't have any internationally recognised foundation because he has failed to unite the country he led for many years."

Kabimba said there was no former head of state within the region that had been able to act in such a format of character mutation as Dr Kaunda has been doing.

"That's why he can only play a role of Santa at Arcades giving gifts to children because adults no longer trust him.

The man has rendered himself irrelevant to the Zambian people. Kaunda should exercise deep introspection in the few years remaining in his life on earth to do just one act that he will be remembered for by the people of Zambia," Kabimba said.

"The man has no record. That's why he has not been able to write his memoirs because there is nothing good to write about Kaunda. He has failed to write his memoirs. Even those tasked to write can't proceed to do the job because there is nothing good to write about the man. He announced publicly that he was tasking Mark Chona and Aaron Milner to do his memoirs but there is nothing."

Chimbwi No Plan (CNP) Now A Reality In PF

Nothing can prepare the minds of Zambians to accept that the government means well, unless the high cost of living that has been set in motion with the removal of fuel and maize subsidies does not affect the size of their nshima (staple maize pulp Zambians eat with relish) on the table.

By Ngwende Nyalubinge

Sata knows that his position on withdraw of subsidies is not just unpopular but seriously lacks analysis depth among sensible people. This is why instead of facing the citizens himself, he gets ZNBC's Misheck Moyo, Queen Chungu and some impoverished Daily Mail and Times of Zambia reporters to go into compounds to start giving a government perspective of subsidies to residents who do not even know the meaning of subsidy, then take the influenced comments or reactions, which obviously Sata wants to hear, and tell the whole nation that common people in the compound have accepted the removal subsidies.

We can accept the subsidies withdraw from one maxim," a spoon fed man will one day demand your finger".

Even with that maxim, it will be difficult for Sata and his PF stooges to use the public media to manufacture consent so that people can accept this daft-thought-out economic miscalculation. Nothing can prepare the minds of Zambians to accept that the government means well, unless the high cost of living that has been set in motion with the removal of fuel and maize subsidies does not affect the size of their nshima (staple maize pulp Zambians eat with relish) on the table.

Blue in red band is expenditure in MMD, Green with red band is PF now

And when we look deep in the Zambia economic environment you see that it is the person who is feeding us who is finishing the porridge on the plate and demanding our finger. There is abundant lack of fiscal discipline on the part of the Patriotic Front government, in particular President MICHAEL CHILUFYA SATA. He has failed to measure the water in the pot according to the maize meal in the pack, or he has no idea of how to cut the cloth to the right size. The salaries of his cabinet and their deputies has double from K8 billion per year in the previous government to over K15 billion. On top of that Sata is mockingly asking poor Zambians to sacrifice, but cannot hint on cutting his salary and that of his ministers. Selfish leaders!

On top this greedy, here are some areas showing lack of planning by Sata:

1. Sata's political greedy and focus to have parliamentary seats he did not win in the 2011 elections, he is now using our porridge to entice hungry opposition MPs thereby creating by-elections that are costly. He has even gone to take away even the stocks in our cupboard which is feeding to his 88 deputy ministers.

2. We need to expand our education infrastructure at tertiary level in order to open up more spaces for those left out. But in the face of limited resources, Zambia cannot afford to set on constructing three universities at a goal. It needs to open up roads to rural areas, but the kilometres that are supposed to be done should be limited to the finances budgeted for and provided in budget support. Also the cost efficiency of doing these roads must be there so we do not just look at the political benefit of showing off black asphalt to villagers who have not seen this pavement in their life time or since Independence, while the economic benefits may not even pay back the cost of the road in the next 50 years and by then the tar road, probably named after Sata’s wife, could have been eaten away, rutted with potholes.

3. We need to be efficient in the delivery of services, make the process of our workers and those who want to do business easily access administrative procedures. We have not been doing well in this area, but we cannot roll out many districts at one time oblivious of the costs of developing infrastructure for these new administrative centres and paying the establishment. We all know and the politicians have agreed that district commissioners are irrelevant, PF has not just maintained these good for nothing mouths but has gone to increase them without any consideration whether they were in the national budget or not. We have 20 or more new districts, some of them just less than 7 kilometres within Lusaka.

4. It must be said that there a lot of ministerial travels abroad, some which are not necessary. Hardly a week passes without three to four ministers being on a silver ndeke out with a huge delegation trotting the globe. Some of these trips, albeit costly, are not even adding any value to the country's immediate economic needs or social capital in relation to countries being visited. If a budget of one of such trips was floated for young entrepreneurs to compete for using viable proposals for businesses that could create wealth and jobs, today we would have been counting reduced poverty problems and dependent youths in the country. One such useless travel is the use of scarce public resources to pay for Geoffrey Mwamba (Defence Minister) and a crew of over a dozen babies in combat to go and watch military toys in Turkey?

A government with fiscal discipline would choose to reduce these trips, but it is one way to take away more porridge from our plate and feed the political leadership.

When people talked of Sata being a CNP, many reasonable Zambians thought it was just political malice. However, the close to 20 months of the Patriotic Front in government with Sata, not a rail sweeper, but in the driving seat has proved true Hakainde Hichilema’s CNP (Chimbwi No Plan) theory.

NN

Only 20 months with Sata has already exhausted our patience

Sata has made not only bad, but very costly, mistakes that do not make any economic sense and to a greater extent are attacks on democracy.

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Zambians are very patient people when it comes to giving space to their political leadership in government. They gave Kaunda and UNIP 27 years to annoy them to the limit while they allowed three presidents in 20 years under MMD to push their luck too far. But signs are that two decades will not happen to allow political mismanagement of the country by Sata and the Patriotic Front.

We have only been here for 20 months with Patriotic Front and Sata, and he is already exhausting our patience as a people for his government to continue discharging the affairs of the country.

Students at the major state universities, UNZA, Copperbelt and Mulungushi, last week had lessons disrupted in demonstration of the recent decision by Sata’s regime to remove subsidies on fuel and maize grain. 

 The removal of subsidies have sent costs of transport and the staple maize meal skyrocketing. It is now costing K250, half the salary of a shopkeeper to travel from Zambezi in the North Western province to the capital Lusaka. Mealie meal that was only costing between K45 and K50 twenty months ago is now costing between K70 and K80.

May 1 Day Speech Exposes Sata’s Hypocrisy

Choosing to condemn others for exactly the same actions that he perpetuated shows how dishonest on bigger national issues has ceased to be a reproach to Sata, just as failing to be honest about his actions on smaller things is no longer dishonorable to him

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

The condemnation of opposition leaders, Nevers Mumba for MMD and UPND’s Hakainde Hichilema, by President Michael Sata is a grand standing of hypocrisy.

“And today Mr Nevers Mumba is not here. Mr HH is not here because they are ashamed they have been preaching Sata is dying...does a dying man look like me? ...and if you want to aspire to lead this country, come here because all you workers we understand your difficulties whether you have nice uniforms in the army, whether you have nice uniforms in the police there are still other difficulties, accommodation and transport and a number of things.

So if you are leaders and you are aspiring to lead the people of Zambia come here and celebrate with them…including my boys who are sitting in the trees,” Sata said.

First we all know that Sata refused to participate in all government functions for ten years he was canvassing for sympathy from Zambian voters for presidency. He said all bad things about late President Levy Mwanawasa’s government and gave clumsy reasons for his boycotts.  

Sata flanked by labour minister Shamenda shake hands with worker on May 1

Today Sata stands and opens his mouth in a usual style trying to accuse others of being irresponsible leaders who have no interest in the plight of workers. Sata did not attend Labour Day celebrations for ten years. So for decade Sata did not celebrate with workers.  He should not blame the actions of the opposition leaders; he must go to the podium during national functions to apologise to the country for authoring rancorous politics.

In fact it is silly for the President to ask the opposition leadership to celebrate with the workers publicly so that they can understand the many difficulties that these workers go through. He seems to be deliberately forgetting that it is the same government that dismisses workers from the public institutions when they interact with opposition leaders. Didn’t this very government dismiss Evelyn Hone College head of journalism studies Clayson Hamasaka when opposition UNPD leader Hakainde Hichilema walked to Evelyn Hone to check on the poor sanitation at the institution in the wake of a dysentery outbreak?

Apart from the Evelyn Hone cruelty, it is the same Sata who has failed to condemn his Foreign Affairs deputy minister Gabriel Namulambe for banishing parents who belong to opposition parties from PTAs (Parent Teachers Associations) in his constituency. Sata also failed to condemn his police when it started harassing and arresting opposition MMD and UPND leaders for taking a walk in public markets and visiting chiefs. By keeping quite over these blatant abuses, it means Sata is explicitly authorising this heavy handedness. Why then should the same Sata today think that opposition leaders must celebrate with the same workers he has chosen to isolate from those in opposition?

Choosing to condemn others for exactly the same actions that he perpetuated shows how dishonest on bigger national issues has ceased to be a reproach to Sata, just as failing to be honest about his actions on smaller things is no longer dishonourable to him. We ask Sata to take stock of his wholesale past and present political rancour and be honest with himself if what he portrayed while in opposition and is now promoting as head of state can inspire other political stakeholders to feel part and parcel of national events. Maybe it is this lack of integrity that he avoids to hold a press conference, fearing he would have a lot of explanations to make about his inconsistent character.

It must be emphasise here that no matter how he runs a smear campaign against opposition leaders, choosing to ignorance to his own intolerance planted in our political culture, he will not hide away from embarrassment of being the biggest laughing stock, not from the public, but the bible he holds, which teaches that do unto others as you would love them do unto you.

We also find it shocking, if not absurd, for Sata to think that opposition leaders can have any meaningful interaction and get to understand the difficulties the workers are facing when he knows that such events are meant for his Stand-up Comedy while those who represent workers foolishly applaud him. Sadly, workers are denied any chance to speak freely about the problems they face in different work places. If he truly means well that opposition leaders must interact with public workers to understand their plight, Sata must allow mature politics that will not intimidate bosses of institutions who give audience to opposition leaders.

While Zambia Federation of Employees President Joyce Nonde in an insignificant way tried to remind Sata of his deficiencies that he also stayed away from national functions like Labour Day, she failed to blame his actions as the cause of the opposition leaders reaction. She needed to pick up courage and ask Sata to unequivocally apologise for his actions.

We also find it awful for public media (ZNBC, Daily Mail and Times of Zambia) alongside the private Post Newspaper to fail to help us get the answers from President Sata why he chooses to condemn opposition leaders over the same actions he found right in the ten years by shunning public events.

Their positions to be too hard on the opposition, representing them to be irresponsible while making Sata look as an angel when his rancorous actions are well documented and known will just work to annoy Zambians more for unfairness.  Remember Zambians love justice and would want to stand and protect the weak from the powerful. The day of reckoning will surely come.

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Sata is collaborator who aided repressive, corrupt regimes

Both the Kaunda and Chiluba regimes were associated with brutal policies of oppression. What is the reasonable explanation can those who served under these governments, including Sata, to prove they did not collaborate in all their evils?

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

President Sata worked in corrupt and repressive regimes. Zambia’s fourth republican president was an errand boy both for Kaunda during UNIP and Chiluba under MMD. These two regimes share 47 years of rule of infamy between them, 27 of UNIP and 20 of MMD.

It cannot be denied that Kaunda destroyed our democracy and was a ruthless tyrant, whose regime tortured and jailed citizens for making intelligent argument against awkward political rule and bad economic decisions. On the other hand, Chiluba damaged the honesty and integrity of our society. Chiluba claimed he was a democrat but he was only stopped by the full force of the opposition and civil society from altering the two terms (five years each of presidency) and seeking a third term.

Zambia: Where are We Going Wrong?

Our education system is tailored to provide white collar jobs, and those who cannot muster the algebra and pass the examination will either be pushed through an education system that at the end of the day throws them out disillusioned, calling themselves grade 12 school leavers but with certificates that cannot be accepted anywhere. 

 By Nyalubinge Ngwende
It is the yearning for a better life in country that has little afforded meaningful growth in productivity. It is not lack of investment that Zambia suffers from but inefficient productivity that is underpinned by political wastefulness and a misplaced education system.

In snippet format, I take a look into Zambia’s difficulties that start with political wastefulness and an uninspiring education system.

1. Zambia suffers from political wastefulness that prefers to use scarce resources for feathering political nests. This is a country where government leaders will find money to fly bureaucrats in a rural district, fuel a dozen vehicles and claim huge allowances to investigate the cause an epidemic outbreak, piling blame on a hapless health worker who hardly gets 40 dollars for his operations and the only medicine that could be in stock is painkillers (Panadol).

2. Education is insurance for any future potential that is stored, undiscovered in a child like a bright glow of bulb that is not there until it is switched. It is for this that those who have been proponents of education demand that conditions a child finds himself or herself in various communities should do less to determine their future opportunities to become useful members of their communities and later on the country.

It is good that education must produce professionals—teachers, doctors, pilots and engineers. But more than that it must also give us artisans for the village industry, for those weaved and carved products to be touched with skill and embedded with value that can go to the market locally and abroad. It needs people in the arts and culture—musicians, cultural performers, traditional garb designers and those who will bring the industry of culture in construction to make the country a unique marvel for tourism.