More pain than Gain as Zambia Clocks 40 years

Elizabeth Mwetwa, a retired school headmistress, 61, still recalls with nostalgia how more than 34 years ago, she taught at a school in Zambia’s western province, got paid on time and was accommodated in a government house. That was shortly after Zambia had gained its political independence from the British colonial masters and changed names from Northern Rhodesia to Zambia after the river Zambezi on October 24 1964.

By Anthony Mukwita

“Every one who went to teaching school or indeed any other graduate were assured of getting a job immediately they finished school,” Mwetwa says with a far away look in her eyes, “the situation is different now…you have to say a prayer to get a job and another prayer to get a house or get paid at all.”

Milupi, now retired after having taught about 30 years is but one of the many Zambians that feel a sense of hopelessness, 40 years after Zambia’s independence,

The number of people in formal employment has instead of increasing been reducing every year with only about 400,000 of Zambians being in formal employment out of a labour force of about 3million Zambians according to trade union movement studies while the rest are either unemployed or eking a living in the low paying informal sector.

“If you have been independent for about 40 years you expect jobs to increase and not shrink,” says Joyce Nonde, president of the Free Trade Unions of Zambia (FEFTUZ), which mainly looks at interests of those in private sector and financial institutions.

The government does not seem to see the concerns being raised by civil society and trade union movement leaders, in fact they have set aside 2 billion kwacha, about $400,000 to be spent for a days celebration at State House where President Thabo Mbeki will be a guest of honour.

“To me setting aside such a huge amount of money for a days celebration is inconsiderate,” Nonde said, “especially when there’s no medicine in hospitals, children are out of school and the majority of Zambians are living on less than $1 per day.”

This year, the government halted the employment of some 9000 teachers because doing so would increase the government wage bill and jeopardise plans to qualify for the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC) when the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other western donors expect to write off up to $3.8billion of Zambia’s foreign debt estimated to stand at about $7billion.

Opposition refuse to give the

credit to Mwanawasa’s government

for the good harvest

President Levy Mwanawasa publicly says he is ashamed that Zambians were poorer 40 years after independence but refuses to shoulder the blame.

“These problems (poverty) started during the time of my predecessors, Dr Kaunda and Dr Chiluba,” says Mwanawasa, “am trying very hard to reverse the situation by fighting

“...the good harvest is as a result of God’s decision to give us good rains and not Mwanawasa’s agriculture policies, if at all he has any.”

corruption and improving the agriculture sector.”

Mwanawasa has embarked on a corruption fight that has won him kudos from western donors though the pace has been slow and he has continued to subsidise agriculture in-puts since the food crisis in 2002.

Zambia is now exporting corn to Malawi, Kenya, Angola and the Democratic Republic 0f Congo (DRC) after harvesting 1.1million metric tones of corn in 2003 and expecting to harvest 1.3million this year after a food crisis that threatened 3million Zambians in 2002, which is more corn than it needs to consume locally.

Opposition refuse to give the credit to Mwanawasa’s government for the good harvest with president of the main opposition Anderson Mazoka of the United Party for National Development (UPND) saying:” there’s no reason to praise Mwanawasa’s government over divine intervention..the good harvest is as a result of God’s decision to give us good rains and not Mwanawasa’s agriculture policies, if at all he has any.”

Zambia that once boasted of about some of the healthiest people in the region at the dawn of independence presently is a referred to by critics as a ‘nation of the sick’ due to the scourge of HIV/AIDS that has devastated many Zambians.

The Central Board of Health says the disease has decimated more than 1million Zambians since it became an epidemic in the early 1980’s and left about 1million children orphaned after losing either one or both parents to the disease.

The disease has also had a negative impact on the economy because it has slashed life expectancy from 52 years over a decade ago to just about 37 years presently, with the educated being worst hit.

Despite the massive unemployment, HIV/AIDS and a heavy foreign debt burden though, diplomats say Zambia has a lot to boast about and had good prospects for the future.

“When you are looking from inside, things look bad but when you look from outside you see that things are better in Zambia compared to other countries in the region,” said European Union delegation leader Henry Sprietsma, “For instance this country has never been at war, it provides shelter to thousands at war, it has undertaken to fight corruption and AIDS more than any other country I know in the region…that’s positive I think.”

“As a Christian nation, we should remember that the children of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years before they knew happiness,”

Zambia has been providing a home for more than 200,000 refugees from Angola, DRC, Somalia, Burundi, South Africa and Rwanda since the early 1960’s.

In fact South African President Thabo Mbeki lived in Zambia for more than 15 years during the apartheid struggle and speaks the main Zambian languages fluently.

Bishop Simon Chihana of the International Christian Fellowship in Zambia has beseeched Zambians living in abject poverty, 75 percent according to the Central Statistical Office, to have hope.

“As a Christian nation, we should remember that the children of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years before they knew happiness,” Bishop Chihana said, “we must all have hope that things will get better and pray to God.”

Meanwhile, Zambian leaders blamed for the squalor its citizens are currently living under do not even see eye to eye because they are locked in personal fights of ego.

Dr Kenneth Kaunda despises his successor Chiluba because he says he arrested him without lifting his immunity and he also blames him for the death of his son Wezi believed to have been assassinated in 1999.

Chiluba despises Mwanawasa because he blames him for leading a crusade to lift his immunity and arrested for allegedly stealing more than $40million of state money during his 10 year rule dubbed the reign of plunder by the current administration. Most of the charges have been dropped due to lack of evidence though.

In the centre there’s Mwanawasa who is good friends with Dr Kaunda but foes with Chiluba, the man who anointed him President in 2001 and campaigned for him because of allegedly being corrupt.

Whether the lives of Zambians will improve in near future or not however is a question of the kind of leadership it gets according to analysts.

Whether the opposition, trade union movement and other government critics will attend this years celebrations at State House is yet another question but normally, they stay away in protest against deteriorating life styles.