Utopian toilets

Utopian toilets
By The Post Editor
Sun 18 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT

NO one should deny the truth of what Bishop John Mambo has said. He is right when he says that the country has lost direction in terms of social and economic recovery.

It is clear to many of our people that the government’s approach to social problems in the country is very poor. It is not surprising that many go about their affairs with a sense of hopelessness. What is the government’s response to this state of affairs?

Rupiah Banda’s preoccupation has nothing to do with addressing the concerns of our people. He spends all his time scheming how he is going to come back to power next year. This is what explains Rupiah’s behaviour, particularly his preoccupation with settling scores with his enemies, real and imaginary. Instead of running government, he is in a state of continuous campaign and resource mobilisation for the same. Rupiah has no time to sit and reflect on the plight of our people.

We say this because Rupiah does not seem to understand what the function of a government is. This is why he spends a lot of his time travelling and having a good time. If Rupiah thought his government’s job was to attend to the many pressing social and economic needs that our people have, he would not have the time to keep gallivanting at every opportunity. The numerous socio-economic challenges that we have as a nation would be enough to keep a visionary leader fully occupied.

When one observes Rupiah’s conduct as a President, it is difficult to imagine that he is affected by the suffering of our people. He certainly does not appear to be one who could ever spend a sleepless night wondering how to resolve the problems of our people. This raises the question of why he is so desperate to remain in power. It is certainly not about service. If it is not about service, then what?

A reasonable government would realise that its primary function is to provide services to all its people in a way that enables us to remain organised to be able to enjoy comfortable and fulfilled lives. We are not here saying that the government can sort out all our problems. But we are advocating a situation where the government is seen to be making every effort to address the challenges that its people have.

We are saying this because we have not recovered from the shock of having a government minister laughing at the lack of services and calling the need for all our people to have access to adequate sanitation facilities or toilets as we would call them, utopian. How can having a toilet be utopian?

How can living in a country where everybody has access to toilets be utopia? This kind of thinking is what Bishop Mambo is rightly complaining about when he says that the pronouncements made by our leaders in government do not inspire the people.

The philosophy of government that Rupiah has is a confused one. We have said before and we say again that to them, government is about the benefits that accrue to them and not the services that they are obliged to provide to the people. This position has been clearly articulated by one of Rupiah’s staunchest supporters, Southern Province deputy minister Daniel Munkombwe, who refers to what he calls politics of benefits.

This type of politics has no time to fully understand the challenges that the people face and to come up with clear plans of how those challenges are going to be dealt with.

To them such exercises are a waste of time and count for very little. This is what explains why the whole government starting from the head himself, Rupiah, is simply interested in travelling. They travel even when there is disaster at home because there are benefits in travelling.

It was only the other day that President Hu Jintao of China cut his foreign trip short because of the earthquake that hit one of the regions in China. But in our case, Rupiah was happy to leave the country when only a few kilometres from his presidential palace there was a disaster, which left many of our people stranded.

The floods in Kuku compound and areas in that vicinity are the worst Lusaka has seen in many years. The waters have collected in such a way that certain parts of Lusaka have been left looking like they are now by the seaside. Houses and livelihoods have been submerged and yet Rupiah saw it fit to continue with his foreign trips.

Rupiah was able to do this because he did not think that attending to the disaster-struck residents of Lusaka was his job. And he said as much. If Rupiah cannot pay attention to his own people when there is disaster, when is he ever going to pay attention to them?

Of course, after concerns were raised, Rupiah went to visit that area after returning from China where he was photographed enjoying an idyllic tourism retreat on some watercourses in China.

This government does not understand that its job is to attend to the requirements of the people from the cradle to the grave. It is difficult to understand why for instance they can say that providing toilets is utopian whilst buying us hearses seems to be attractive.

Rupiah’s government does not think that providing every Zambian access to good water and sanitation is important and Rupiah is very eager to buy mobile hospitals. It is common sense that if people have access to adequate water and sanitation their health is likely to perform well and the opposite is also true.

If people do not have adequate water and sanitation, they cannot be healthy. Why insist on giving people mobile hospitals whilst calling the need for basic toilet facilities utopian?

A thinking government would ask itself what difference it would make in the lives of our people if they could have access to water and toilets. It is clear that since the people in government do not have any challenges accessing toilets, they take it for granted.

They don’t even think about it. This is what explains why they don’t seem so concerned about the operations of the water and sewerage utilities. They take those things for granted. It would not surprise us to find that a water utility like Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company is owed huge amounts of money by the government which they are unable to collect and yet the government using its position still expects services.

Lusaka has grown to a city of over two million inhabitants and yet the services are lagging far behind. Even people living in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, are in many cases not able to access toilets.

It is foolish to shy away from addressing such a basic issue simply because many of the elite do not even think about toilet facilities. They take using the toilet for granted.

There are many of our people for whom going to the toilet is not that easy. It is a matter that requires some planning. For them a promise of adequate sanitation is not utopia, it is a basic need that somebody needs to help them have. This is something that their government needs to address. Rupiah and his minions’ approach to such a basic issue is symptomatic of the way they never take responsibility for anything.

To them, their people’s needs are a laughing matter. This is why we believe people like Bishop Mambo are observing that the pronouncements by government are sad. The culture of petty electioneering at the expense of delivering meaningful development to the people is despicable and should be condemned.

Rupiah should stop and think about what the people truly need and tell his deputy minister for justice Todd Chilembo that there is nothing utopian about a toilet. It is a basic human requirement, which must be afforded to all our people in addition to all the other social amenities.