Maravi

For once, let Rupiah take responsibility

COMMENT - The problem isn't donor aid, the problem is not taxing the mines and using donor aid as compensation for not taxing the mines. So it would be fantastic for Rupiah Banda to turn to minister Pedersen, we don't need any donor aid, we're going to tax the mines for $1.2 billion a year. Not taxing the mines is the real corruption.

For once, let Rupiah take responsibility
By The Post
Tue 29 June 2010, 04:04 CAT

We know that over the last few years of being in government, they have become much richer than they were before.

But they shouldn’t think the needs of every Zambian have been dealt with in the same way. While Rupiah Banda, George Kunda and their friends have improved their conditions of living, for the great majority of our people, poverty and despair is deepening. Part of this is because the government is unable to provide them with the services required in an organised society.

Sometimes when one is living well, it is very easy to forget what it means to be hungry.

This is what seems to be happening to Rupiah and his friends. Their personal wealth has increased exponentially so that they are now not able to relate to the common struggles of our people. But when you have all you want, think what it is like to be hungry, what it is to be poor. The money that the donors provide to our country is not for the rich people like Rupiah and George.

These don’t need donor aid because the Zambian taxpayer is there to give them all that they need – salaries, allowances of all sorts, gratuities, contracts for their associates, family and friends. Donor money is for the poor, is for those who are not able to get government contracts, to be suppliers of this and that to the government; is for those who don’t earn a salary or an allowance from the government. It is not for Rupiah or George.

And for this reason, they may not be able to see the need for donor aid although sometimes even they themselves benefit from donor aid in so many ways. We say this because the roads that they drive on and which they use to woo votes are a product of donor aid. They may not need any services or drugs from our hospitals because they can go to Johannesburg, Cape Town and sometimes India for their medicines and therapy.

But they shouldn’t forget that sometimes there are emergencies and they may need the services of our hospitals and the use of the limited drugs the donors help us to acquire. Moreover, if they cared for their relatives, they would realise that not all of them can be taken to Johannesburg’s Morning Side Clinic where they themselves go even for common colds.

They can dismiss the value of donor aid because they live on the moon when the majority of our people have no food, clothing, shelter or even clean water.
We should therefore not leave it to Rupiah and George and their friend Frederick Chiluba to deal with the donors on our behalf because they themselves don’t need donors, they have already accumulated enough. What can Chiluba tell us about the value of donor aid and the accountability they are demanding? Chiluba has never known what accountability is.

A thief can never like accountability and the controls this places on the use of resources. So it does not surprise us that Chiluba has joined his friends in denouncing donors over their demand for accountability in the use of the money they are extending to the poor people of our country.

As we have shown, the arrogance of Rupiah and George is not difficult to understand. These are detached people who do not feel the suffering of many of our brothers and sisters who are living on less than a dollar a day. What pain can Rupiah feel when he can take a holiday any day he wants in any part of the world? For Rupiah, being in State House is a prolonged party which he never dreamt would come.

We wonder if he does any work at all other than just gallivanting around and insulting people he disagrees with, including donors. Yes, Rupiah can afford to wake up at 11 O’clock and start roasting meat and drinking beer with his friends because he doesn’t pay for these things. Their behaviour is delusional. They are creating a false consciousness which is cheating them and making them believe that they are more powerful than they actually are.

This is the only explanation one can give for someone waking up to insult the donors. A person who is thinking clearly would not do what they are doing. The challenges that this country has are too many and we cannot afford an unnecessary fight with those who have come to help us.
One can talk about colonialism and imperialism with the British government if they want.

But not every country, every nation, every people that is assisting us today has anything to do with our colonial past. What colonialism in this country can one accuse the Swedes, the Danes, Norwegians, Fins or even the Dutch? An honest person will acknowledge the fact that some of these countries supported our struggle for independence and the broad liberation struggle that was waged against the racist and apartheid regimes that surrounded us. Rupiah should be the first one to acknowledge this fact because he is a direct beneficiary of Swedish assistance.

Rupiah went to school in Sweden in that country’s effort to aide an emerging Africa that was short of qualified personnel. It was okay for Rupiah to receive that aid but it’s not okay for a dying child in Sindamisale, in Sinazeze, in Chavuma, in Kaputa, in Luena to receive that same aid. What type of selfishness is this? What type of lack of gratitude is this?

Yes, we know they do receive aid in briefcases – lots of cash – from the benevolent colonel north of the Sahara. But that’s for their own personal use, and for other services which we don’t know. They never share with the Zambian people what the colonel gives them. We know these things although we don’t talk about them.

Well, Marion Pedersen, the Danish Parliament’s chairman of Foreign Affairs committee, has thrown a real challenge to Rupiah and his minions.

Let them stop bluffing. If they think that this country does not need aid today, they should not start barking like a scared village dog which barks whilst retreating. They should simply say so. As Marion has said, there are many poor countries in the world that badly need aid; there are more hungry mouths that need to be fed. But this is what happens when leaders allow themselves to be cheated by the allure of power.

They feel invincible and stop relating to reality. We say this because we have no doubt that the nonsense being spewed by Rupiah and George is shocking even their most ardent supporters, their rational friends in government. If Rupiah was working, he would be speaking to his Minister of Finance about these matters before making disastrous and ill-advised off-the-cuff statements.

What is Situmbeko Musokotwane, our Minister of Finance, telling his boss? Does Situmbeko agree that this country can do without aid and that nobody asked the donors to bring their money here? But does Situmbeko have the courage of character and conviction to face his boss and tell him the truth? What about Kapembwa Simbao, the Minister of Health? Does he believe that our country can do without donor support to the health sector? What are they telling Rupiah? Any normal Zambian today knows that our health sector is in a state of paralysis.

That’s why they jump on planes to go to South Africa and see orthopaedic surgeons when their knees are hurting from too much rhumba dancing and other activities. Rupiah and George should spare a thought for our poor brothers and sisters who desperately need that aid to the health sector. As for that thief, Chiluba, he should just shut up and bring back the money he stole that his friends are trying to protect him from accounting for.

We are sure that even Dora Siliya, Rupiah’s Minister of Education, will tell Rupiah, if she cares to be honest with him, that our education system is also in a state of paralysis and can do with more and more donor aid.

No one has the right to shut the doors to education to millions of our young people who are being consigned to an illiterate future because of the selfishness of a few.
Even the MMD as a political party knows that on this one, their boss has lost it. His belief in fighting everybody has drawn him into a fight he cannot win and they will pay a price.

Yes, we know that aid is not the answer to all our problems. We need to get to a high level of self-reliance. But it is nonsense for somebody who enjoys his three-square meals, first world health care and education for his children at taxpayers’ expense to shut the door to our less fortunate compatriots who cannot dream to enjoy even the leftovers from Rupiah’s continuous feasts. And all this arrogance, truancy and irrationality simply arise from the fact that the donors’ demands for accountability are jeopardising their appetites for wrong things.

The donors are not to blame for the problems that Rupiah is today facing on all fronts. Rupiah himself is to blame for the nonsense that his government is condoning and he is engaged in. For once, let Rupiah take responsibility for his misdeeds.

Labels: CORRUPTION, GEORGE KUNDA, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 1:37 PM