Dear Editor,
PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu’s address before the plenary session of legislature otherwise fondly referred to as “State of the Nation address” under the new normal was not a mere calendar talk but the constant reminder to Zambians that despite the dark cloud caused by supervening events of Covid-19 virus, not all is lost.
The speech took into account while forensically evaluating the achievements that have been transformed from rhetorical theories to tangible being.
The speech broke down President Lungu’s success as torch bearer of the PF-led government to more chewable chunks for easy political digestion.
It was a constant reminder for the President to periodically present himself for accountability before Zambians in whose fiduciary state power is entrusted in his safe hands.
The opposition only has misinformation as the basis of offering alternative views to the Zambiaans.
It is evident that the new normal era has basically put the various Information Communication Technology (ICT) initiatives the PF Gov-ernment implemented.
Despite the number of institutions compelled to come up with impulsive and unconventional decisions of working from home, there has been no complaints by the general public to allege inefficiency or underperformance by public institutions.
Indeed, Covid was a blessing in disguise as it has brought the technology which PF has brought about into test, and the test has been passed successfully. We talk of the over 1, 000 communication towers which are littered in all corners of the country.
With regard to the emergency of the novel Covid-19 virus, President Lungu’s Government has strived to balance between the need to pro-tect the lives of people while at the same time allowing the wheels of the economy to run its race.
The pandemic has taught us a lifetime lesson that will virtually remind us that all sectors of the economy are important and interlinked. Ku-dos to businesses that survived the pandemic and confined to operate even in the era the cases rose to exponential levels. This speech has set the recovery plan in the post technical lockdown era.
The devaluation of the Kwacha can be attributed to the demands and necessities used in the fight against the virus. With our elementary understanding of economics, we can infer that this compelled the government to consume more dollars and this blew the Kwacha right in its own face.
The unforeseen effect of the occurence was attenuated by the Bank of Zambia’s reluctance to allow citizen consume the K10 billion stimu-lus package.
During the 2016-20 era, there has been immense diversification in the agriculture sector. For the first time in history, there has been drastic shift from relying on the production of maize and farmers have casted their nest wide to pursue other opportunities.
With this vigour and determination going into 2021, the foreign agricultural products will wither away from the shelves of our chain stores and replaced by our own locally grown goods. The directive by President Lungu that chain stores should give priority to local farmers needs our concerted and collective effort if it is to bear fruit.
We are glad President Lungu has announced that anytime he may be the guest to some random chain stores to see whether they have defied the order he gave in his quest to protect the local farmers and the local economy as well.
As regards the health sector, President Lungu outlined the projects which have been rolled out throughout the country. Government has gone an extra mile to launch the various specialised health institutions and beside the facilities that exist in Lusaka, there is ongoing sponta-neous decentralisation to provinces and progressively to districts.
As far as youth empowerment is concerned, the opposition parties can consolidate the government efforts by mobilising youths for em-powerment opportunities rather than being rebellious.
It is in this vein that we can only wish for continuity of President Lungu and PF Government beyond 2021. President President Lungu’s second term will be the beginning to achieve the Zambia we want.
We therefore wish to welcome President Lungu’s success story which was delivered when he addressed the plenary body of our legisla-tors last week.
MARVIN CHANDA MBERI,
Youth Rights Activist.
Lusaka.
Author
