By Mthoniswa Banda[i]
Dear Mr President,
I HAVE followed with interests your meetings with heads of state institutions and ministries and recently your meeting with heads of Local Government and Housing authorities.
In these meetings, Mr. President, you have challenged these leaders on the status quo of being business as usual even when services are not being delivered to the citizens and taxpayers.
Mr. President, you have also challenged these leaders on their fondness for luxury and extravagant conditions of service even when the economy is not doing well and or their companies not making profit.
You have challenged them to make their sole purpose of being in those offices to be that of improving the Zambian way of live, tearing down bureaucracy and bad policies and to ensuring that the demands of industry for more support and better operational environment is facilitated and acted upon with the utmost speed.
If one is to summarise your message to these leaders, it is that these leaders and institutions are there to serve the Zambian people first and there should not be any wasteful luxuries on the job.
Mr. President, now that you have met leaders and organisations that serve the Zambian people, it is time that you met the people that are serve, the leaders and captains of industry that deal and provide work for the Government and Government agencies.
It is now time to meet the captains of industry.
You have met the supply side of Government business. Now it would be nice and prudent to meet with the demand side of Government business – the captains and of industry.
A meeting with these will help you fully understand the complete loop of who Government side of things (supply side) interact with the demand side of things – the industry. It will also help highlight the challenges that industry faces to operate in this country ranging from bad policies, to inertia of government institutions to reform; and to the creative bottlenecks created by the educated paper pushers and corrupt elements within the government system.
The bottlenecks are the ones that captains of industry are forced to circumvent through bribing their way out of them or to be at the mercy of these institutions and succumb to demand for kick-backs and favouritism before government services, licences and even contracts could be awarded or given to them.
Mr. President, my interest today in meeting the captains of industry is not in what could be the possible outcomes of this meeting, because I am aware that you, Sire, were until recently, one of the leaders and members of industry, as businessman, rancher and investors and yes as one of the captains of industry!
The challenges of working under a toxic and inimical environment created by Government and Government institutions is well known to you Mr. Hakainde Hichilema. Your already know what the industry does not like about dealing with government from slow processes, corruption to sheer unresponsiveness of the system to reform and change. In fact, Government is always 10 steps behind industry.
My interest is on who will turn up when you sound your trumpet and summon all captains of industry.
My interest is on the full names of these captains of industry and which towns and villages they hail from.
My interest is on the skin tone and hue of these captains of industry and whether they have enough melanin on their skin that can withstand the full glare of the sun and beating down of the rains.
My interest is from which schools and colleges these captains of industry passed through. Did they pass through our government funded and sponsored colleges and universities or they are graduates of global universities?
When your trumpet sounds and all bankers show up, by bankers I mean the real owners of the banks and not highly paid employees of the bank like the Melus, Chibesakundas and Kalyalyas among others!
When your trumpet sounds and all manufacturers show up, which Zambian, black skinned with kinky hair will show up for these meetings? Which Zambian will show up with the title of owner to these meetings and not as a proxy of some hidden Chinese, Indian or any other foreign industry?
When your trumpet sounds and all miners from all the corners of Zambia show up, mine owners of the heavily and mechanised operations digging for mineral wealth underneath Zambia’s surfaces show up, who will be in their midst? By mine owners I mean real owners and shareholders of these mines and not these miners by school papers and appointments like the General Chinkulis, Beenes, Mukutumas of the Northwest. How many Zambian copper millionaires or diamond and emerald miners or nickel or cobalt miners will show up for the meeting?
When your call for the meeting goes, how many Zambian commercial farmers with thousands of hectares and thousands of heads of cattle for meat or milk will show up to your meeting? How many tribal headsmen and women with local know how of the Zambian terrain and customs will show up as farmers to your meetings? Will the Chilalas and the Mazhandus and Bandas and the Mwansas show up for this meeting as farmers?
When the providers of health services show up, will the owners of the top Zambian hospitals, laboratories, clinics and mortuaries that show up for this meeting be Zambian by skin, tribe and hair texture?
I can go on and on and ask of the media and entertainment industry and ask if the media owners and owners of satellite television, radio and telecommunications that show up to meet you be Zambians!
Nkani izibika Mr. President.
Such a meeting will be a meeting of you alone meeting captains of industry with long silky hair, cat like blue eyes and bleach like skins and accents borrowed from all corners of the globe. They will be no Zambian in that meetings and the meeting will be like any other conferences or meetings held in the capitals of the world to discuss poverty reduction of the sub Saharan Africa!
Like the West Africans ask, where are the Zambian mining millionaires since Zambia is a well-known as a copper, gold, emerald, coal, nickel, uranium and manganese producing country?
Where are the techno-millionaires that have made money from adding value to these minerals produced in Zambia? Where are the Zambians that have made money from producing bullets and wires from copper, or scientists from processing uranium or explosives from these minerals?
How many Zambians have become millionaires from the massive infrastructure development and the massive roads construction that the country has been undertaking since the 60s? Who are the leaders of the construction industries?
Which Zambian family apart from the Thornicrofts of Luangwa and Mfuwe known for their giraffes have made money from the wild animals that abound in this country? Why are the Bandas not rich from shooting lions or protecting the rhinos and why it is a crime for a Banda to be found riding a zebra in the streets of Lusaka, Kitwe or Chipata?
Why is Enock Kavindele not rich from his 1 km railway line from Chingola towards the mystical coastal town of Benguela? Why hasn’t his railway line been given all the necessary Government-support paper needed for it to complete building the inter country railway line to Angola thereby creating the much needed employment and work for the youths and villagers lying along the route from Chingola past Solwezi to Benguela in Angola?
Why is it hard that a Mbewe or Chama or Khamungwa or Mudenda or Mebelo or Siame should own an airport and airline that will airlift Zambians and Zambia’s goods and services to and from the Global Village? Are we not clever enough to run our own airlines and airports and have to wait for Ethiopeans, South Africans, Emirates and Kenyans to come run our own airlines and airports?
Mr. President, things need and have to change.
Zambians must be Captains of industry in all sectors of the economy and more so in providing meaningful leadership.
If the lessons of the local fight against Covid-19 are anything to go by, Zambia was at the mercy of foreign entities when it came to producing vaccines, oxygen canisters, respirators and even simple masks. No Zambian owned company had the financial and technological muscle to assist Government and Hospitals is fighting against the spread of Covid-19.
No Zambian firm or company had the money or wherewithal to feed and sustain Zambia when the borders were closed and foreign airlines could not fly in and fly out. At least Kenyans and their Kenyan Airways, Ethiopeans and their Ethiopean Airways continued to fly providing the much needed agricultural and other services needed by European and American countries worst hit by the Covid pandemic.
Zambia was nowhere to be seen and remained at the reactive end of other countries’ decisions.
This Mr. President needs to end. We need Zambians that will own industries and companies that produce every thing that we need for meals we eat, clothes and shoes we wear, cars and njingas that we ride, houses and building materials that we use, roads and rails that transport our goods and to the technology we use to connect among ourselves and to the rest of the world.
If this happened, a call for a meeting with the captains of industry will be like chintu chabwino maningi when a village headman summons all headmen and women back into the village and stands by the village gates to count the number of cows, goats and donkeys that return into the village after a successful period of pasture.
Only when Zambians own industry will such a call for a meeting of capatains of industry be like a meeting of Zambia’s noblemen and women who return home after a successful tour and plunder of the worlds and as commanded by God when he said “Go yea and plunder the earth”.
Your sincerely,
Mthoniswa Banda
[i] The Author is a Social Commentator and critic, Lobbyist and Human Rights Defender, Media and Communications Consultant at Mthoniswa Banda Consultancy www.mbzambia.com
