ON 24 August, UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema took the oath of office as Zambia’s seventh president after inflicting a comprehensive election defeat on then-incumbent, Edgar Lungu. He inherited a country with a major debt crisis coupled with economic decline. So what has he achieved in his first 100 days? How do ordinary Zambians see the first 100 days of their new president?
As knowledgeable observers of the country’s political landscape are acutely aware it is characteristic of mixed reactions. On governance, the newly-elected president has restored the rule of law and allowed free speech. Formerly banned privately-owned radio and television stations are now operating. He also issued an early announcement that required the police to remove party cadres/activists from bus stations and markets to prevent them from extorting money. This was initially a major change from the previous era.
Yet oblivious to UPND top leaders, most grassroots diehard vigilante groups have vehemently vowed to defy their presidential directives to move on quietly into political irrelevance without any alternative means of sustainable livelihoods. Consequently, they have covertly returned and resumed their illicit activities in a clandestine style in markets and at bus stations. They have continued to stealthily extort money from minibus drivers and market traders – albeit most councils have seemingly taken over the running of markets and bus stations from the party cadres to maximise their revenue base.
But in other areas the situation is less clear cut. Our President’s supporters expected him to go full throttle on the fight against corruption, but some think he has been too slow and vacillating, with many in his party and outside expressing displeasure. This is despite our President having promised to establish fast-track courts for economic crimes when he opened parliament on September 10.
On the economic front, he has tried hard to boost the economy by stabilising the Kwacha and by increasing the Constituency Development Fund from K1.6m to K25.7m to make decentralisation a reality in the 2022 budget. Constituency projects are also intended to create jobs to tackle high unemployment, a critical issue if the UPND is to retain the young Zambians’ support.
But while relations between the UPND government, foreign donors and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have improved, there has yet to be any concrete progress over the two most pressing issues facing the country – economic bail-out and debt-restructuring on the one hand, and the management of the country’s economically and symbiotically important copper mines on the other.
Our President’s plea has been that people must give him time as he restores order. This is a reasonable request given the problems he faces. But for the hungry and unemployed such patience is not a luxury they can afford at the price of regime change. Not only that, what they finally got was just 100 days of consistent mudslinging against ex-government officials. It was clear that the attempt was to discredit UPND’s opponents and destroy them politically.
One thing is for sure – report cards for the newly-elected Zambian president’s first 100 days were coming in thick and fast. Most agreed that it was a mixed record. He has managed to restore the rule of law quickly, replaced the top military and police officials, clamped down on party cadres and reversed decisions against free speech and a free media. In other areas he has some way to go. In all fairness, he has one hell-of-a-job to do. He once lamented to have inherited a bankrupt state with debts of more than US$14bn, owed primarily to Eurobond holders, multilateral institutions and China. China’s lending to Zambia was particularly opaque under the previous regime, but recent reports from the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI) suggest Zambia’s debt to Chinese public and private lenders is US$6.6bn, twice the official figure previously disclosed.
Our President is also negotiating a hefty bailout package with the IMF. Last week in Parliament, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane announced a “staff level” agreement on a US$1.4bn, three-year extended credit facility, the terms of which still need to be clarified. What we do know is that the Zambian government will need to “undertake bold and ambitious economic reforms,” according to Allison Holland, IMF mission chief for Zambia.
Meanwhile, the UPND administration has managed to stabilise the Kwacha and reinstate previously ousted Bank of Zambia governor Denny Kalyalya, but inflation continues to rise and unemployment figures are still very high. Calls in some quarters are growing louder to cancel fuel and electricity subsidies, but that would cause a spike in household spending that the electorate would find hard to tolerate.
Further austerity measures under an IMF package might also be too much to bear. A fortnight ago the central bank raised interest rates for the second time this year by 50 basis points to 9%, to try to “contain inflation that’s still nearly triple the targeted rate”.
Quite astonishingly, it is a tragic irony that China is now being blamed by the West for allegedly doing exactly what the IMF has been doing for decades: providing unsustainable loans to countries in need to further plunge them into debt, weaken state capacity and open up national economies to international investors (primarily from Western countries). While China might be pursuing its own debt traps, they are certainly less experienced than the IMF when it comes to leveraging debt over heavily indebted countries. So why should it be any different when it comes to China?
Probably our President’s most difficult task is withstanding the pressure from UPND loyalists and voters to act quickly. They want him to hunt down those who allegedly stole from the state and bring them before the courts. And, ironically, they want a piece of the pie as well. According to a recent analysis by Johannesburg-based risk advisory firm Pangea-Risk, there are worrying signs that patience is wearing thin. As expected, several of his political backers have been angling for better ministerial positions in the newly-elected government.
