By Editor
Mon 12 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT
YESTERDAY we lamented the lack of care for the plight of our people by their government.
It is very clear that Rupiah Banda and those that surround him think that running the country is a matter of chanting a few slogans and propaganda. They do not seem to realise that running government is about delivering actual and tangible benefits for the people.
It is folly to tell a person who is hungry that he is full and things are getting better and hoping that by that mere pronouncement, the person’s situation will change. But this is what Rupiah and his friends keep doing, announcing and congratulating themselves on the claims that the economy is doing very well. To them, it is enough to simply tell the people that the economy is doing very well and they expect that by that mere pronouncement, our people will give them accolades.
This thinking is pathetic. We say this because when they announce that the economy is doing very well and congratulate themselves, they mean to say that the price of copper, Zambia’s staple export, has increased on the international market. By the very fact that the price of copper has increased, they want to claim that they have run the economy very well. This is interesting because all one has to do is to ask them what role they have played in ensuring that the price of copper on the international market increases. We ask this question because if they want to take credit for the increase of the copper prices on the international market, they should tell us what they have done.
What we are saying is that Rupiah and his friends think that merely claiming credit for things that they have neither caused nor can cause will win them political kudos. The only problem with this kind of thinking is that it is self-deceiving. This is because our people are not interested in the international price of copper. What they want is nshima on the table, schools for their children , and medicine when they are sick and roads to travel on when they need to. Telling them that the economy is doing very well because of the international copper price when they have not eaten, when they have not been able to send their children to school and when they are not able to access medical care is an insult on their intelligence. This is what Rupiah and his friends need to realise.
The people who lead the nation need to understand how their conduct and the decisions that they take in relation to the resources that we jointly own as citizens impact every Zambian from Shang’ombo to Kasumbalesa. It is not enough to simply say we have attracted foreign direct investment and therefore we are successful. No! This cannot do. The real question as Rupiah and his friends try to take credit for things that they have not done is how much of the copper money actually goes into the national treasury for the benefit of our people in comparison to what the copper mining companies take for themselves. This is the issue, not what the price is at the international market. In other words, we need an honest and sincere assessment of what the real benefit is of the copper mining activities that are happening in our country. We say this because Rupiah and his government were very quick to do away with the windfall tax which we thought was a measure taken by a government in which Rupiah served – Levy Mwanawasa’s government – which was meant to increase the benefit that this economy derives from copper mining in our country. Today the price of copper is very high but what real benefits are we getting? How many roads, how many schools, how many hospitals will be built because of the price of copper today?
This is information that is necessary for us. It should be made available freely so that our people understand the real benefits if any, that are accruing to us as a nation as a result of the near record high copper price.
It is foolish to mortgage a wasting asset cheaply. This is what we fear may be happening. The copper mining companies are getting more benefits from renting our resources than we are getting as the owners of the resources. This is injustice, this is wrong.
We wonder what real measures the government has taken to ensure that the declaration of output and the resultant revenues that the mining companies are declaring are legitimate and honest.
It is this lack of clarity that leads us to conclude that Rupiah and his friends are either incompetent or dishonest or both. Could it be that they are sacrificing national interests in return for short-term cosy relationships with some mining houses? Why should the government not want to collect revenue particularly when that revenue is linked to the performance of the underlying commodity on the international market? If the price of copper goes down, no windfall tax. If it goes up, then there should be a windfall tax. What could be wrong with that? What is wrong with our people benefiting from their copper? And why is Rupiah so determined to deny the people a fair share of their inheritance?
This is why we keep going back to beg from the donors who are taxing the same mining houses for the copper that they mine from our country. What are we saying? Rupiah refuses to collect adequate taxes from the mining houses, they externalise their earnings including what should have been our tax, their governments collect a lion’s share in taxes and then our government goes to line up begging for alms from the donors. What could be more ridiculous than this?
If the economy is doing well on the back of improved copper prices, can Rupiah and his friends tell us when we are going to stop begging? Whilst we are at it, can they also tell us how much we would have collected in taxes if the windfall tax regime had not been so mindlessly butchered?
One wonders how Rupiah and his friends hope to run this country without deriving the fullest benefits from the natural resources that God has endowed this country with.
If Rupiah and his friends were serious about changing the lives of our people and providing services, they would be consumed with the task of identifying where the resources are going to come from. Just saying that we are going to attract foreign direct investment and that is somehow going to change our economy is nonsense. The multinationals are not philanthropists, they are not here to do us favours. No! They want their pound of flesh and more. It is up to the government to protect its own people and to safeguard the interest of its own economy. There seems to be a madness in the government that believes that all they have to do is to attract foreign direct investment and the economy will sort itself out. This is nonsense and the highest form of incompetence.
[This is called 'neoliberal economics'. FDI will 'bring jobs' and money will 'trickle down' 'somehow'. In the context of the MMD, it means - we sell Zambia's resources for cents on the dollar, and call it 'development'. The problem is that neoliberal economics lead to economic collapse, and bailouts by the same government they revile. - MrK]
The one way of explaining this madness is that the government does not fully accept that it is their responsibility to run the country and ensure that the economy, including the lives of our people, are running in a harmonious way. Rupiah and his friends seem to believe that there is somebody else who is responsible for our well-being. When it comes to responsibility for running the country in an efficient way, it is as though they are not the government. The only time they are government is when they are giving jobs to their friends or giving contracts to their tenderpreneur clique. Dealing with floods, hunger, disease, joblessness is something that they will do if the donors give them money. What kind of nonsense is this?
There is money for Rupiah to go globetrotting every time he wants but very little when it comes to delivering services to our people. Although they want the benefits of being in office, they are very quick to distance themselves from the responsibility of being in office. This is why we asked yesterday; who is in charge? Our people deserve the truth on the state of the economy. Statistics and international copper price indices will not feed anyone.
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