Maravi

This injustice will not continue forever unchallenged

COMMENT - " We know that our country is too poor to give all its people great material wealth, but it can give them the sense of equality, of human dignity. " I disagree, just on a mathematical basis. The country is being bled dry by the foreign mining companies. Zambia should get at least $1.2 billion in taxes from the mines every year, instead of gets $50 million? So no, there is enough money, all we need is a government to take it.

This injustice will not continue forever unchallenged
By Editor
Tue 30 Mar. 2010, 04:00 CAT

THERE is no future development without healthy and educated citizens.
And one cannot claim to uphold the sanctity of life if there is no provision for minimal health care for all. Life is sacred and should be valued from the moment of conception until death.

A society which values its future accords the highest priority to providing education for all its young people. Every person, whether rich or poor, has an equal right to receive health care and education. And economic justice requires that each individual has adequate resources to develop and thrive, and to give back in service to the community. Economic growth depends in the very first place on social progress. And this being the case, it means that the poor should deserve preferential attention when it comes to the provision of education and health services. We say this because their poverty, their inability to provide these services for themselves is impoverishment and inability caused by the unjust political, economic and social structures.

We know that our country is too poor to give all its people great material wealth, but it can give them the sense of equality, of human dignity. If our priorities are set in the right way, it will not be impossible to provide quality health care and education services to all our people. There are countries with very limited financial resources that are providing their people with health care and education that is comparable to that of far richer countries. In this regard, Cuba stands out as a shining example of a third world country, economically blockaded for more than 50 years but even at its worst economic moments has been able to provide its people with a very high standard of health care and education that has been recognised even by the United Nations. So this is not only a matter of having the financial resources to do it but one of according it the highest priority. It is also a matter of justice, fairness and equality within a country. We say this because in a country like ours, the rich, the well-to-do are receiving better health care than the poor.

When they fall ill, those with the means go to private clinics and hospitals and are given better attention by nurses and doctors. And in some cases they are evacuated to more advanced hospitals in South Africa, India and other parts of the world where medical facilities are better than ours. For some with political influence, this is paid for by the state. But for a poor person, the state is not there even when specialised treatment is recommended abroad. For such people it doesn’t really matter what state our public health services are in because they don’t depend on it, they don’t need it for their survival. It is the poor people who most need these public health services which are managed by people who rarely use them, who don’t need them. Even those who work for government institutions, the government still pays for them to go to private clinics and hospitals locally and abroad. They are not totally dependent on the services provided in public hospitals by their employer – the government.

The same applies when it comes to education. Those running our education services don’t take their children to the public schools they administer on behalf of the people. They take their children to very expensive private schools which the poor taxpayers have to pay for. Even the President of this country, Mr Rupiah Banda, his two little children don’t go to public schools; they attend very expensive private schools at the expense of the taxpayer. Why is Mr Banda not taking his children to the public schools he’s administering? The only reasonable explanation we see is that the standards and conditions in these schools are too poor for his children.

In those days, those good old days, when there was some equality in our country, when the government prioritised education and health care, almost all children in our country went to the same schools regardless of their social backgrounds. The children of Kenneth Kaunda and other leaders shared desks, classrooms, dormitories in public or mission schools with the children of peasants, workers and other poor people of our country. And because they were also using the same services with the peasants, workers and the poor of our country they paid special attention to the provision of these services and their government became closer to one of the poor and the humble by the poor and the humble, for the poor and the humble. And because of this, the gap between the have and the have-nots was not as wide as we see it today.

Today there is a new type of apartheid in this country, that of the poor and the rich or the well-to-do. The poor have their own world in this country. They stay in the shanty compounds of our towns and cities where there are virtually no social services; where there’s poor sanitation, pit latrines, no proper drainage and are harassed by floods every rainy season and the water-borne diseases that they carry. They have poor healthcare services and inadequate educational facilities. They don’t attend the same private clinics and hospitals that the rich and well-to-do of Zambia attend. Their children receive what would be called ‘bantustan’ education in basic schools. And when it comes to shopping, very few of them are seen at the shopping malls of say Manda Hill, Arcades, Cross Roads and are confined to the streets of Freedom Way, Lumumba Road, Cha Cha Cha Road, Kamwala and Soweto markets, among others of similar type across the width and breadth of our country.

The only interaction they have with those who run the affairs of their government, with those who benefit heavily from the taxes they are forced to pay is during election campaigns when they come to seek their votes. Surely, this is not the Zambia KK and his comrades fought for and struggled to establish. This is not the humanist society, the man-centred nation that Comrade KK dreamt of.

And as Mufana Lipalile has correctly advised, there’s need for those in government to have a sense of justice, of fairness, of humaneness and channel more resources towards the social sectors such as education and health that benefit the ordinary citizen because so far the economic benefits have not trickled down to the ordinary citizens. And as Lipalile has correctly observed, “at the moment, it is very difficult to say that economic benefits are trickling down to the poor because poverty levels are still quite high. A lot of poor people still do not have access to essential goods and services”.

Those in government seem to be more inclined to the provision of services that are enjoyed by themselves and their friends. Look at the amount of money they are today spending in South African and Indian hospitals on themselves and their friends and compare that to what they are spending on their fellow poor citizens! It would seem that even donors care more for the poor of our country than our own elected representatives. It is the donors who every day insist that this and that aid will only be spent on the poor. The money collected from our taxes is wasted on unnecessary trips abroad and high travel allowances for government officials. This is not the way to run a country. One day the poor will rebel and refuse to cooperate with those governing against them. This can be avoided by a simple recognition of the fact that if this country is not good for all of us, it won’t be long before it also becomes not good for the few who are enjoying all the benefits that our economy and our taxes can give. There’s need for justice, fairness and humaneness. There will be no peace in this country if justice, fairness and humaneness is not extended to all. This injustice cannot continue forever unchallenged.

Labels: EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE, NEOLIBERALISM

posted by MrK @ 2:40 PM