Not a single leader present at “The Zambia we Want” press briefing talked about the need for hard work to achieve the Zambia they want. Every leader had the same message.
The message was that the state of ‘things’ in the country are bad. But I wish Mr. Fube, Mr. Mutati and Dr. Mwansa had come together before the meeting and synchronized their speeches to give them meaning.
As it stands, it was a free for all. Everyone seemed in a hurry to convey their message as a result meaning was lost along the way. I forget what message Dr Mwansa was trying to put across. I was unable to follow his line of logic. I waited for the newspapers Monday morning they also seemed not to carry his message.
Overall, they tried to tell us about a Zambia we should expect that will have a flourishing middle-income economy through mining, agriculture and energy sectors.
More jobs for the youths, plenty food for every Zambian, free first world education, free medical care, affordable uninterrupted electricity supply. The wish list was so long I forget some of the free goodies.
Of course, it would have been difficult for Mr Fube to talk about the rule of law without talking about economic issues, similarly Mr Mutati could not talk about the economy without tackling the legal aspects. But everyone was agreed the Zambia we should expect will not be markedly different from the PF and Mr Lungu’s Zambia because he also talks about creating a lot of jobs, education , affordable energy, medical care, lots of money in the economy etc, etc.
But let us give “the Zambia we want group” the benefit of doubt and ask what sort of jobs they will create if they win the August 12 elections, and they win again in 2026. That is 10 years or same as PF has been in power.
The Zambia we want group will have to deal with a total population of 18.33 million Zambians growing at 2.5 percent every year. Of these 8 million live in urban areas and 10 million in rural areas today.
We have approximately 3.5 million school and college age children between 14 to 24 years old, we have 5 million active and employment ready Zambians between the ages 25 to 54 years, 500,000 between the ages 55 to 64 years and 390,000 senior citizens above the age of 65 years.
The 25 to 54 age group make up the greatest number of majority untrained political carders we all talk about. Most are married but without jobs.
These people are prepared to take up any physical challenges sometimes requiring brutal force made available to them at a fee. They do it out of need to survive.
This is the age group that Mr. Fube, Mr. Mutati and Dr. Mwansa will need to provide jobs. And if they can convince me how they will go about creating jobs to achieve this challenge in their 10 years, I will be the first on the line on August 12 to Vote for them. But talk can be cheap.
I heard Mr Mutati mention that he will promote Agriculture jobs.
Take a hypothetical case scenario, to employ 5 million Zambians in agriculture at a bottom casual labour rate of K1000 per month means the industry must produce K5 billion (US$230million) agriculture produce worth to pay wages every month or approximately 1.4 million tonnes of maize exclusively exported every month to meet the K1000 per month wages.
An agronomist colleague said wages should not exceed 10 percent of cost of production, Mr Mutati will be looking at increasing maize production in his tenure from the current average 3.4 million tonnes every year to ridiculous annual quantities to be able to pay K1000 per month to 5 million employment ready Zambians.
You can also do your own back of envelope arithmetic for other industries and come up with your own estimate of how many Zambians can be employed in the various sectors keeping in mind the JCTR recently announced the monthly National Basic Needs and Nutrition Basket number of K8,100 from K7,100 in June 2020.
I think it was Mr Mutati who mentioned that he will reduce mining taxes to encourage more investments in the sector. This is a brilliant idea. But I wonder why he stopped at mining taxes when infect he is aware the major culprit is government wage bill.
I was expecting him to be courageous enough and announce that he will cut government expenditure to half in the first year. After all we do not need all the extravagance that comes with government expenditure. Doing so while keeping mining taxes at their present levels will release immediate money to more locally driven private sector investments.
If Mr Mutati wants to create more local jobs he must not look to foreign investors but look inwards where Zambians can start to grow their economy by tailoring the available tax money to promote more local industries.
Mr. Fube wants a Zambia where the rule of law will apply. This is a rather subjective statement. I am not a lawyer, but an old-fashioned engineer, a profession that Mr Fube rebuked to be performing below his set standards.
I have always held the impression only parliament makes laws. If I got him right, and just as he wants engineers to perform to his imaginary utopian standards, he wants all judges to interpret the law to his standards. I look forward to the day the legal profession in all their arguments will start to use FUBE vs THE PEOPLE as a precedence authority at law. It reminds me of the movie Idi Amin.
Just a thought,
Sincerely,
