Maravi

Who is in charge?

Who is in charge?
By Editor
Sun 11 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT

THOSE who do not want us to criticise Rupiah Banda for all the wrong things that are happening in our country should ask themselves a simple question: What would happen to our country, what would Rupiah do if he was free to do whatever he likes without any criticism, without any requirement for accountability?

We do not expect such people to come to us and give us their honest answer. We just want them to stop and think. If they have any measure of honesty in themselves, they would agree that the result for our country would be disaster.

The things that Rupiah would do if he did not fear any criticism and political reprisal would make the problems that we are facing today insignificant. He would do more harm than what is being done to our country today.

By saying what we have just said, we are not in any way suggesting that Rupiah listens to constructive criticism and acts on it. We are simply saying that the fear of criticism and political reprisal such as the potential of losing the election next year keeps him in check somewhat. What would be by far better would be if the criticism that he received helped him to do better for our country by coming up with policies that address the concerns of our people, consequently making our country a better place.

But this seems very difficult for Rupiah. He does not seem to have the capacity to think very deeply and dream about a better tomorrow for our people. There does not seem to be an ounce of idealism in him at all. Rupiah seems to be the kind of politician who lives for now, for today and the pleasures and benefits that today can bring. There’s no depth in his thinking. And this is the problem that our country is facing – a complete and total failure of leadership.

Leadership, in the situation where we are, would entail pointing the country in the right direction and taking it there. This is what our people want, but this is what Rupiah seems totally incapable of doing.

A leader who cares about his nation and the people that he leads would have sleepless nights about the problems that bedevil our country. It would be impossible not to be heartbroken about the suffering of our people. The necessary result of this would be the emergence of politics that address the most pressing problems of our people. The politics of such a leader would have very little to do with settling scores and personal aggrandisement at the expense of the majority. This kind of leadership is painful leadership but it is a necessary leadership if our country is going to come out of the quagmire that it seems to be stuck in.

Rupiah and his friends seem so removed from the day-to-day struggles of our people that one wonders what it is that they think true leadership is. It does not seem that they take responsibility for ensuring that our people are fed, that those who are sick are treated and our young people who need education are taught. One does not get the impression that these are critically important areas of priority for Rupiah and those that surround him. Rupiah and his friends look lost. Although they claim to have experience in government, they do not seem to realise that the government’s basic role and responsibility is to look after its people. They do not seem to realise that looking after people demands the delivery of basic social services and making available necessary social amenities. These are their basic duties but for some reason they seem satisfied with being able to finger-point and pass the buck to somebody else.

They do not realise that by passing the buck, they abdicate and surrender their claim to office. Why should they be respected as leaders if they are not going to break their backs to ensure that our people are looked after? Every honest Zambian knows that all our problems cannot be resolved in a day. But they expect to see honest and sincere efforts in dealing with their problems. We want to see basic competence in the handling of issues of the state. But this is where Rupiah fails continuously. One does not get the impression that he knows what day of the week it is. He does not seem like a man who is in a real hurry to deliver to our people.

Health is a basic requisite for a happy life. Our people deserve decent health services. But Rupiah does not seem to care. The debate that has been going on about the harrowing experiences that expectant mothers have to go through in delivering babies is something that should make a caring leader cringe with pain on behalf of his people. Arguing that the issues that are being raised by Edith Nawakwi are a product of madness is madness itself. Who does not know that our health system is in a permanent state of comatose and largely unable to deliver a meaningful service to our people? Instead of insulting Nawakwi, Rupiah and those that surround him should be thinking of strategies to reverse the horrors that our people have to experience when they are sick. But because they lack imagination, compassion and the competence to run the state on behalf of our people, they couldn’t be bothered. To them, it is enough if they conjure up some words to dismiss the criticism of their political opponent Nawakwi. The fact that they have not dealt with the underlying subject of the criticism is nothing to them. This is the kind of leadership that Rupiah is providing. If truth be told, it is not worth being called leadership. Who is he leading?

Where is he leading them?

The crisis that we see in the health sector is also present in the education sector. As a nation, we are producing an army of uneducated young people with no basis for hoping for a better tomorrow. It is the duty of the government to ensure that meaningful and workable strategies are crafted to ensure that this negative time bomb is curtailed. Our children should be given reason to hope for a better tomorrow. Those who come from poor families should know that there’s a possibility to do better than their parents did because they are receiving a descent education that will transform them into more productive citizens. These are not matters about which high sounding political rhetoric should be traded but removed from reality. Rupiah and his friends need to realise that it is their job to educate the rising generation. But do they care? Do they think it’s their duty?

In the same way that they do not care when our mothers are receiving horrific medical care when they go to deliver babies and produce a new generation of Zambians, Rupiah and his minions do not care if this generation is not educated.

It is not only health and education that they do not care about. They are not worried when they hear from their own statisticians that the overwhelming majority of our people live in abject poverty and can barely hope to find the food to keep body and soul together. Rupiah does not seem to think that it is his job to help our countrymen and women who cannot find jobs to find them.

Rupiah and his minions sing about the virtues of foreign direct investment without ever articulating how it is going to impact our people today, tomorrow and in many years to come. Rupiah seems prepared to mortgage the future prosperity of this country to interests that he does not even understand. It does not appear that he realises that he is the chief custodian of national interests. He should not give away our rights without caring how that could impact future generations.

How many jobs in reality does his so-called investment produce for our people? But more importantly, how much revenue is going to be available for us to build schools, hospitals, roads and other social amenities? For a party in power this is not a matter for cheap political slogans. It is about facts, figures and specific statistics.

No investor comes to Zambia to come and do us a favour. They are here to make a profit and if they can do it at our expense, they will do it. This is where competence and humility in running the affairs of the state comes in. If Rupiah and his friends knew that they did not know, Zambia would be safe. But because they think that they know when they don’t, they continue to drive the nation aimlessly. It is their job to look after our people but they don’t know how to do it. Who is in charge? Who is looking after our interest? These are the questions which Rupiah and his minions need to ponder very deeply.

Labels: CHARLES MILUPI, EDITH NAWAKWI, HEALTHCARE, LEADERSHIP, MMD, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 7:42 PM