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Economic emancipation remains a challenge - Levy

Economic emancipation remains a challenge - Levy
By Brighton Phiri and Mutuna Chanda
Sunday May 25, 2008 [04:00]

PRESIDENT Levy Mwanawasa has said it is unacceptable that over 40 years after independence many people still had limited access to clean water supply and adequate sanitation. In his message to mark Africa Freedom Day which is being commemorated under the theme, ‘Meeting the Milleium Development Goals on Water and Sanitation’, President Mwanawasa said the limited access to clean water and adequate sanitation was exposing many people to water borne diseases such as dysentery and cholera.

“This situation is unacceptable as our country is endowed with many rivers, lakes and other water bodies from which water can be tapped, treated and provided to our people,” President Mwanawasa said. “To improve accessibility of our people to clean water and sanitation, my government has embarked on major projects covering the whole country.”

President Mwanawasa also said although political freedom had been achieved in all of Africa except Western Sahara, economic emancipation remained a major challenge.

“I am happy to note that as a nation, we have made tremendous economic strides to make our political freedom meaningful,” President Mwanawasa said. “Yes a lot still needs to be done but we are already on a sound footing.”

President Mwanawasa said Zambia had continued to register positive economic growth with an annual real GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth rate of 5.7 per cent in the past three years.

And former information minister Vernon Mwaanga said yesterday that Africa Freedom Day was a serious day of reflection and rededication to the cause of our people,

In his solidarity message to Africans as they commemorate African Freedom Day today, Mwaanga, who was among the youths that participated in the fight for Zambia’s independence and contributed towards the liberation struggle of Southern Africa, said it was high time Africa shifted its efforts towards improving the political, economic, social and democratic wellbeing of its people.

“Africa Freedom Day is a moment to remember that Africa went through a long and brutalising period of colonialism and apartheid and attained a hard-won freedom after a long bitter struggle,” Mwaanga said. “As a result of victory over colonialism and apartheid, the whole of Africa is politically free. The shift now should be improving political, economic, social and democratic wellbeing of our people who paid for their freedom with their blood and lives.”

Mwaanga reminded the African leaders engaged in the political, economic, social and democratic advancement of the people that their leadership was not about themselves but service to the people whom they had pledged to serve.

He said the struggle for Africa to be economically, socially and democratically free would not be a sprint run but a marathon that called for dedication.

“We must make use of the beginning on which the future generation can be built. We have a challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals in the eight critical areas as identified by the United Nations (UN),” he said. “Regrettably, many of these goals will not be met due to various reasons, but we should not get discouraged…where mistakes have been made, we must correct them all the time.”

Mwaanga said Africans should be mindful of the image which they had created for themselves due to continued conflict and lack of focus on issues of international interest.

He said as Africans celebrate their political freedom, they should make a commitment and rededicate themselves towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals so that they could have countries and a continent that was a far better place to live.
“For Africa Freedom Day is a serious day for reflection and rededication to the cause of our people,” said Mwanga.

Development Partnership International (DPI) Zambia media co-ordinator Richard Musauka said that the African citizenry deserved a brighter future. He said that Africans’ brighter future begins with visionary leaders who could answer the challenges faced by the continent.

“We should not seek to play the usual game of just listing the challenges but to join our voices to demand for fair play from the political processes,” said Musauka.

And UPND president Hakainde Hichilema said the current generation of leaders had failed to deliver the kind of freedom that their forefathers dreamt of.
Hichilema said Zambian and other African leaders ruling today had missed the vision that was envisaged in the liberation struggle.

“The state of our country’s education, water and sanitation, crop marketing is not what our forefathers had imagined,” Hichilema said. “If you asked KK (Dr Kenneth Kaunda) if what we are seeing today is what he and other freedom fighters had imagined, he would say ‘no’. KK built schools and expected that the next generation of leaders would improve on what he had left but today when you go into schools in rural areas you find that children are sitting on the floor, there is poor water and sanitation.”

Hichilema said the over 15 years of the MMD’s rule had taken Zambia backwards.

“When you talk about the welfare of farmers today, it has worsened than it ever was, in days of Dr Kaunda. Those of us that grew up in the village, farmers would go to Namboard with maize for sale and would be coming back with fertilizer and seed for the next season but today, farmers take their maize to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) and FRA collects the maize and cheats them out of their payments,” Hichilema said. “Today, we have so many farmers who have not been paid for their produce and they have to wait for long periods to be paid. This means that the agriculture system is less organised than it was.”

Hichilema regretted the deterioration of the education sector in the country.

“Today the state of the education sector has deteriorated in relative terms. In the 1970s and 80s we used to have two students sharing a room in a college or university but today we have five students per room and there are no proper meals for students in college or university hence the demonstrations which have resulted in the shooting of two students at the University of Zambia, which is unacceptable,” Hichilema said. “It is unacceptable that students should be shot by police and not that I am supporting them, but freedom is not just the absence of live bullets. The freedom that our forefathers dreamt of meant that people should be in a far better position than they were back then but when you compare the lives of the people in the 1960s and now, the situation is far much worse than imagined and that is not the freedom our forefathers imagined.”

He cited other African examples such as Zimbabwe’s economic problems and the anti-foreigner attacks in South Africa as reflections of the present leadership’s failure to deliver the vision of the freedom struggle.

Hichilema challenged the young generation to work hard to achieve the kind of economic and political freedom that freedom fighters fought for. And Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) president Stanley Mhango warned African leaders not to betray the economic and political revolution started by freedom fighters.

“We urge our leaders to emulate the selflessness and determination exhibited by our forefathers in liberating and unifying Africa in their efforts to offer better services to their respective countries and people,” Mhango said. “Our leaders should devise strategies on how to further intensify and coordinate Africa’s economic and political revolution started by freedom fighters.”

Mhango urged Zambia as current chairperson of the Southern African Community (SADC) to remind the region to coexist and stop the xenophobic attacks on foreigners that was taking place in South Africa.

Labels: DEVELOPMENT, HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, MWANAWASA, STANLEY MAHANGO

posted by MrK @ 3:17 AM