Maravi

Taking people for granted

Taking people for granted
By Editor
Monday November 12, 2007 [03:00]

A word is sufficient for the wise. People who do not want to listen to advice often land in trouble, in problems. Vice-President Rupiah Banda is today complaining that their loss in the Nchanga parliamentary by-election last week came with a sense of shock, that it was a big puzzle for them. If the MMD government took time to listen to people’s concerns and advice, Vice-President Banda would not have expressed such shock because there was nothing shocking about those results. UNIP vice-president Njekwa Anamela said a few days before those elections that it would be a miracle if MMD won the elections.

He said UNIP could lose the elections but it was not expected, in anyone’s wildest dreams, that MMD would win. In our view, this was not an empty statement. It was a serious pronouncement which the MMD needed to take seriously. But from the look of things, the MMD must have laughed at Anamela’s statement. And today, Anamela is having the last laugh.

It is clear that the MMD government is not in touch with people’s aspirations and desires. Only on Saturday, we were reminding them of the free advice we gave them last year on what they should do in order to win people’s confidence and support. Surprisingly, on the same day, Vice-President Banda was lamenting the loss. He said his government was so sure of getting more support this time around considering that they have done a lot of things to improve people’s lives on the Copperbelt. He further said that he was surprised at opposition Patriotic Front’s landslide victory over the MMD candidate because the electorate this time seemed more accommodating and did not show any signs that they would vote in that manner.

From Vice-President Banda’s statements, it is clear that the government takes our people for granted. Even as we laboured to isolate issues that are making President Levy Mwanawasa and his government unpopular, Vice-President Banda still cannot see them as issues worth confronting for the benefit of our people. Vice-President Banda should not be surprised that the people of Chingola seemed to have no complaints against the government but proceeded to embarrass it by embracing the opposition in a very big way. This act confirms the saying that actions speak louder than words.

Our people are merely saying that they have spoken but they have not been heard, maybe they would be heard after their action. We will not repeat our advice to the government on this matter because, like we stated earlier, a word is sufficient for the wise. It seems our government is not wise enough, so we shall not waste time offering them free advice. We shall wait for our people to express their feelings through actions.

Those who are on the ground will agree with us that generally, there is a growing dislike for Levy and his government on the Copperbelt. What Levy and his government should do is understand why the people on the Copperbelt are developing such feelings for him and his government.

In our view, the biggest problem is that our politicians don’t seem to realise that the people they serve are the masters and that they are merely servants. Since they consider themselves to be masters over the people they serve, they think they can push anything down our people’s throats.

On one hand, the government insists that it has done a lot for our people on the Copperbelt in the last few years, while on the other, the people there feel this statement is less than true. They have very specific complaints which they think the government has not attended to for a long time.

In the former ZCCM areas, crime levels have risen to unprecedented levels because of the increase in unemployment levels. There are new mine owners on the Copperbelt who don’t seem to worry about the welfare of their employees and the communities they are in. The social infrastructure on the Copperbelt has collapsed almost to irredeemable levels. Most of the jobs, the key positions in the mines have been allowed to go into the hands of foreign experts. These are the things that are hurting our people on the Copperbelt. One only needs to be on the ground to appreciate this.

Of course, some of the undesirable things happening on the mines cannot be blamed entirely on the mine owners. According to some of the agreements they signed with the government, they cannot be held responsible for some deteriorated infrastructure because their main reason for coming to Zambia was to make money, super profits. That is why most, if not all schools, clinics and hospitals that were previously run by ZCCM, had to be privatised so that these new mine owners could not ‘waste’ their time and money maintaining and running this infrastructure.

Like we have said before, these problems cannot be squarely blamed on Levy and his government because their genesis is with his predecessor Frederick Chiluba. However, there are certain things that are expected from Levy and his government which are not coming our people’s way.

In our view, it would not be an uphill battle for Levy to reverse fortunes for himself and his government if only he put his arrogance aside and exercised a lot of humility. There are so many complaints against the new mine owners which the government seems to be ignoring. Of course, our people cannot stretch their complaints beyond certain limits. But when time comes to express their disgust through the ballot, they will not hesitate to do that. This is what happened last year when the MMD lost all urban parliamentary seats to the opposition and only retained those few seats in the Copperbelt rural.

If the MMD do not want to learn lessons from such experiences, they can wait for another election for a bigger lesson; when they will record a bigger loss.
The point we are labouring to make in saying all this is that let the party in power serve our people’s interests, not their own interests. The moment they do this, there will be no puzzles or shocks for Vice-President Banda and his government to worry or complain about. The Bible says one can only reap what they sow. If the MMD today is sowing thorns, they should not expect to reap roses tomorrow. It is that simple.

Labels: BY-ELECTIONS, PF, RUPIAH BANDA, UNIP

posted by MrK @ 5:52 PM