By Sishuwa Sishuwa
A visitor to Zambia who restricts themselves to parts of Lusaka could be forgiven for thinking that they had entered a vibrant and developing nation. As they stroll around newly built shopping malls, usually packed with shoppers and shops retailing the latest consumer goods in seemingly abundant quantity, it might seem as if Zambia has changed dramatically from the time of shortages and empty shops in the 1980s. Yet, as I discovered during a recent whirlwind trip that took me across different parts of Zambia, this is at best a façade. Vast amounts of money have been poured into the construction of malls across the country. In Lusaka alone, for instance, there are now an astonishing ten malls, emerging in a context where critical national infrastructure has been left to crumble. A closer look at these sprouting shopping malls raises enlightening and incriminating questions. Where are the goods from? How many of the items on sale have actually been made in Zambia? How many of the shops are Zambian-owned businesses? Very few is the answer, if any.
My travels around Zambia, as any regular road user would recognise, were not straightforward. Zambia’s main roads are in a terrible state. Among the worst affected are Chinsali-Nakonde road, Mansa-Kashikishi -Chiengi road and those in opposition strongholds such as the Livingstone-Sesheke road, Kafue-Monze road, Solwezi-Mwinilunga road, and Mongu-Nkeyema motorway. As a landlocked country, the road network is critical to the imports and exports that sustain the economy, and that is why it is shocking that the government has allowed the Lusaka-Livingstone road – a pro-growth highway that leads to Zambia’s tourism capital city and links the country to the markets of southern Africa – to deteriorate to the level it has reached today. I am focusing on road network deliberately because the rail network is in too poor a state to even mention, having suffered decades of sustained neglect and corrupt mismanagement. Major roads between Zambia’s cities are littered with potholes with wide sections missing and no prospects of an upgrade seemingly imminent. Motorists are often obliged to go off the road and into the bush as if nothing has changed in the terrain over the last 200 years. This should be a national embarrassment. And yet the state of Zambia’s roads is taken for granted. Has our nation really sunk so low that we now have no aspiration even to have a functioning transport system?
It is hard to say what is more dangerous: the country’s roads or its hospitals. Once upon a time, we had a health system and network of provincial hospitals that, though not without their problems, at least functioned and could provide a range of basic medical services. Now, outside of a few quite good hospitals in Lusaka, it seems that a patient is more likely to survive if they stay outside any public hospital than if they entered it. This is another testament to the decades of neglect in maintaining our national infrastructure. Hospitals are crumbling with insufficient staff, shortages of medicine and a lack of basic medical equipment. Again, this should cause an outrage, since it is something that affects all of us – that is apart from those who can fly abroad to receive medical treatment.
What is worse is that this is not a problem that is concentrated to one area of the country. It is a nationwide crisis. When I visited Lewanika General Hospital in Mongu, Solwezi General Hospital in Northwestern Province and Mansa General Hospital in Luapula, for instance, I found patients lying on the floor, with no beds, let alone doctors to attend to them or medicine to cure their basic ailments. These fellow citizens had come to these hospitals for treatment and yet they were being left to die. The collapse of provincial hospitals has wider consequences. Patients, if they can survive the journey on Zambia’s deplorable roads, now travel to Lusaka’s University Teaching Hospital (UTH) and consequently place an overwhelming burden on the resources of the nation’s highest health facility. This influx of patients who are unable to obtain medical care outside the capital city has reduced UTH to the kind of death trap that mirrors the provincial hospitals these patients were trying to escape from in the first place. Instead of saving lives, our public health facilities are now dispensing death en masse. Mortuaries, rather than operating theatres, are increasingly becoming the busiest parts of our public hospitals.
What frightens me even more is that a new generation of intellectually promising young Zambians is being educated simply to accept these conditions. The semi-derelict or dilapidated status of many of the country’s schools prepares our students for a lifetime among crumbling public physical infrastructure. Visitors to Hillcrest National Technical High School in Livingstone, for instance, could be forgiven for thinking that they were entering an abandoned building. At one time, Zambia’s schools were the envy of the region as the first post-independence government made strenuous efforts to create an education system in a country that had not previously possessed one. Founding president Kenneth Kaunda and his nationalist friends had a hard task as, even by colonial standards, Zambia’s education system was minimal. It would appear however that recent governments have sought to rival that record. School buildings are allowed to decay. Teachers are poorly paid, with many consequently indebted as they seek to cover for what the government is not providing. Science laboratories exist in name only, while institutional houses, where these are present, look like relics from another era. Public secondary schools that were built as recently as the 1970s are now in dire need of repair. For those schools that offer boarding services, pupils are packed into filthy and overcrowded dormitories and classrooms that are falling down around them. As a result of this unfavourable learning environment, our public schools are increasingly becoming deathbeds of reason, creativity and thought, churning out social delinquents who murder, rob, defile the children and are useful only to political parties as these organisations engage in a vicious struggle to acquire state power through the deadly language of violence and machetes, one that breaks all laws and ethical norms.
Those in power would do well to visit their old schools and see what has become of them. And they should do so soon because it is entirely possible that in a few years, many of these buildings will have collapsed. When I say ‘those in power’, I mean those in whose head and soul the pain of our pitiful state still strikes a chord. I do not mean those whose sole objective in public life is, in the words of former South African president Thabo Mbeki, ‘to acquire personal wealth by means both foul and fair, [and] whose measure of success is the amount of wealth they can accumulate and the ostentation they can achieve, which will convince all that they are a success, because, in a visible way, they are people of means… In this equation, the poverty of the masses of the people becomes a necessary condition for the enrichment of the few and the corruption of political power, the only possible condition for its exercise.’
The steady deterioration of our nation’s public schools suggests that within 20 to 30 years, pupils will be learning in the open air. Sadly, this decline in public physical infrastructure is not restricted to secondary schools. I did not have to travel far to see what has happened to the nation’s most prestigious university, the University of Zambia (UNZA). In many ways, UNZA is a microcosm of a national dream in ruins, for it has effectively become an upgraded secondary school. It is discretionary to continue calling the institution a university and miraculous that there is anything left to see at all. Many buildings that form the University of Zambia, both at Great East Road and Ridgeway campuses, look to be on the verge of collapse while some are engulfed by raw sewage from the institution’s long broken and effectively dysfunctional toilet system. When it rains, water pours into some buildings and the few resources we do possess are damaged irreparably. What is not damaged is hopelessly out-dated. The university’s main library, for instance, is like a museum of the 1970s, retaining as its latest collection books that were published when Kaunda, now 94, was still a youth. Little, if anything, has been added to the collection since then. I am embarrassed when visitors come to Zambia and see what our main national university, which at one time was one of the leading higher education institutions in the region, has been reduced to. Given the hostility of our leaders to (expert) knowledge, one that explains the total absence of a research unit in the vitally important Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development or the presence of a bar but not library at Sate House, it is no wonder that many of our university intellectuals have been retooled to primarily function as in-house advisers and consultants of multinational corporations and the so-called ‘development partners’. The smartest stars among us, continuously ignored by their own government when it comes to the formulation and implementation of policy and strategy, have been unwittingly hitched to a foreign official agenda that advances the interests of those who fund their research efforts to the detriment of our own. The university is the site of making critical knowledge and it is a shame that there is minimal support for this project from national leaders who, when it is convenient to them, decry foreign influence.
The truth is that we are a nation in terminal decline, a rot that cuts across several decades and the efforts of successive governments and one that is likely to get worse because of population growth and the mounting bill for debt service. Many people are resigned to accepting the mediocrity of our lives and leadership and what I have described above as an unfortunate but ultimately unchangeable fact about Zambia. They insist that there is little we can do to change our plight and consequently refuse to rebel against the pitiful state of our sub-human existence. This represents another kind of poverty: the poverty of ambition. At a time when the country needs a new vision – inspired in part by the very decay in both the physical infrastructure and the social supper structure I demonstrate here – to enable us to transform ourselves or to create a new future by destroying the present and building in its place that which will be new, Zambia’s national politicians and educated population expend an astonishing amount of effort and energy on trivial issues, ignoring major and pressing questions of national importance: health, education and transport. The developmental state, one that provides for citizens and was so central to the significant gains that were recorded in the first few years following the achievement of independence, is on its way out, thanks to the crafty efforts of those who seek and stand to benefit from the absence of such a state. What is even more scary is that we have a cadre of leaders running the country or aspiring to lead it who have lost any desire to re-build the developmental state and to identify and mobilise the social forces capable of leading the struggle for renewal and transformation such as the working class youths from both our urban and rural social environments.
What is our national strategy and who devises it? What exactly are our priorities? What has happened to us, Zambians? How did we get here? What went wrong? Why weren’t the basic needs I identify above met from the borrowing that has effectively landed us into a debt trap? Where did all the money go? What can be done to improve our lot as a nation – and if the answer is nothing, then why does Zambia exist at all? What would the world miss about Zambia if we simply vanished off the face of the world tomorrow? Are we, as I fear, nothing more than free-floating consumers of what we do not produce and custodians of the mineral wealth extracted largely for the benefit of others elsewhere? If we are still here next year or in ten years’ time, what would we have done to change our fate as a people, to alter the existing reality and future of Zambia?
We have a long way to go to get to a better future, but we must go there! Most importantly, we have work to do, lots of work, if we are to change who we are today. Tough times ahead – not that these and those before have been any better. Hello, is anyone listening?
Vanish where?
Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa you watch too many movies
Thanks
BB2014,2016
Absolutely Zilch, Nada!
Spot on, Mushota!!!!
Lusaka times should just shut down…struggling to get real news
Shuwashuwa what kind of marijuana are you smoking? Americans know about Africa, they know not shht about Zambia. What do they miss?
Why do you what vanish chhhikala? Life is good.
Yes, we hear you!!! For the first time in your penship, Dr. Sishuwa you have actually impressed me in this diatribe.
Great flow in terms of setting the objectives using both inductive and deductive analytics. And yes, while Lusaka is truly thriving the rest of the country is being left behind.
Especially on roads outside leading to the Copperbelt and other areas. A lot needs to be done there and that’s why all the cash collected at toll booths need to be ploughed back into repair and new road networks.
As for schools, alumni association have been bedrocks in the west, those are needed yesterday among the smart people of the Zambian Enterprise.
Great article … do more like this one. You have finally found your niche. Keep it up and God speed.
Sishuwa, I hear you I get you. I share your pain. I feel the same pain. You know
Zambia- Africa generally is behind in terms of infrastructure development. Even if you have not travelled, you can see on pictures how far behind we are as a Country or cContinent.
We nèd to look at the situation as a Country and say where have we missed it? What can we Do? Etc.
We cétainly need to do something .
1. We need to be patriotic, love our Country and do the best that we can do for our Country
2. All public money should be used for development of the Country and should not go in individual pockets
3. We should encourage innovation and creativity say run completions in technological projects etc – support, fund innovation and creativity
4.Protect intellectual property
5. Encourage hard…
Its a question designed to provoke a certain kind of thinking even if it may not be realistic. The author is asking what makes Zambia positively unique. Try and look for these aspects in everything you do as Zambians.
‘Among the worst affected are Chinsali-Nakonde road, Mansa-Kashikishi -Chiengi road and those in opposition strongholds such as the Livingstone-Sesheke road, Kafue-Monze road, Solwezi-Mwinilunga road, and Mongu-Nkeyema motorway.’
Your bias is evident from the above. If the roads are bad in both PF and UPND strongholds, what point are you making by using the description “UPND strongholds”?
What a pity, because this is otherwise a brilliant article.
‘Among the worst affected are Chinsali-Nakonde road, Mansa-Kashikishi -Chiengi road and those in opposition strongholds such as the Livingstone-Sesheke road, Kafue-Monze road, Solwezi-Mwinilunga road, and Mongu-Nkeyema motorway.’
Your bias is evident from the above. If the roads are bad in both PF and UPND strongholds, what point are you making by using the description “Opposition strongholds”?
What a pity, because this is otherwise a brilliant article.
The guy is an educated f00l. One can read with the purpose to pass but not to be of service.
Damn I.D.I.OTS, as usual, instead of absorbing the content, you are already picking out the sentences that suit you to look for political bias. The above analysis has nothing to do with politics, its purely stating the obvious.
You will do better if you came up with a counter-argument with facts rather than just barking and quoting Sichuwa`s comment.
You are just exposing an example of people suffering from “poverty of ambition” and you are a breed those being educated “simply to accept these conditions”.
General Kanene the fact that you have opened your posting with insults makes you far below intellectually than those you attack for expressing their opinions. Do you know what s.h.i.t is? Does it make any logic to criticize another man’s s.h.i.t. as if you don’t do it yourself? That’s what you are. ..never accommodating other people’s opinions.
There is nothing wrong with investing in shopping malls and similar forms commercial infrastructure. Even certain luxurious hotels are owned by FDI. It is better to maintain observatory of growth of local supplies inside the shopping mall. Targeting 30% at the start is not bad. But capacity building is also needed. Quality Assurance is the key.Even certain banking houses are owned by FDI. Even toll gates are funded through FDI. In the long run, local businessmen will wake up and start to grow their businesses. It is a win-win situation. There is more FDI in China, India and other enviable economies. It is all about the rigorous application of the open economy, the market driven industrialization for maximum economic development. You are also welcome in Havana and Pyongyang.
Dr. Makasa Kasonde, of all the angles mentioned in the article, you have decided to comment to one point concerning the building of malls which seems to be very easy and everyone understands that the money for building malls is private and foreign money and there nothing wrong with that.
Why are we not looking for FDI to invest in our education system to, for example, revamp our higher institution like UNZA? Our hospital like UTH?
What about the deplorable conditions of our roads in certain provinces mentioned in the article? The state of Provincial hospitals?
Fundraising for UNZA is not rocket science. The problem is that UNZA is sluggish in everything. For instance, qualitative concept of user fees was introduced at a late stage. Similarly, the quantitative aspect has been approached from a political rather than cost-benefit analysis to compete with private universities. In my view, a consultant can fix the financial system at UNZA as long as it is identified professionally. I do not regard the 100 million retirees backlog as a tragedy because we live in the economy and capital markets can do more wonders than meets the eye. The private foundations are also busy looking for opportunities where UNZA is seeing problems. Forget about Government funding as the only source of revenue for UNZA.
There is nothing wrong with developing the rural areas
It’s better you disappeared yourself
What would we miss if you varnished . What value do you add apart from criticizing
You criticised mmd
Today your are criticizing of
Form a political party so that you can provide perfect leadership.
That’s what membe did
Today you are criticizing PF
Dr. Makasa Kasonde Well said. I did not finish reading the article because it’s boring and contradicting itself.. The writer is trying to portray as if the malls are built by government funds. Those are done by private investors. You can’t force them to decide on which sector to invest in. I pity the students being lectured by such academicians.
NOTHING NEW………..!!!!
He needs double checking could be ISIS recruit
Building a shopping mall is capital investment with resultant multiplier effect
That in itself pumps money in the economy
I have never been to school but i understand basics
As usual knives are out for he that does research and speaks the truth.Fact is ,is the countries 3 % growth rate sustainable? because looking at both the human and natural resources the country has, it sould be at leat 10%.Are those in authority pressed , able and dedicated to that happening.
A very practical example is if Zambia was as student out of 100 marks what will it score ..20% or an E and who in their right mind will defend such results.Lers be serious countrymen.
“What is wrong with us Zambians?” Simple….we choose wrong leaders
Its really a headache. Kaunda had very very few degree holders but the guys could understand, analyze and make meaningful contributions. Now look at some comments. Its like only those schooled at “matero universities” comment; no understanding of issues under discussion. Well, not surprising. If their leaders, koswe, fail to understand, what more baby koswes? Up ur game guys.
In the universe of falsities and misinformation, Sishuwa is king. These guys and their groups have thrown everything at this PF government but their backers seem to be losing patience. Commonwealth has pulled out, the South African based funders are asking questions, the recent by-elections didn’t go their way etc. These are desperate times for these people, it’s all falling apart.
Well written but lacking in physical evidence, statistics and data. Too anecdotal and based on perception and limited to what he has physically seen / experienced. But this is not to say I do not hold the same perceptions – which could well be debunked by actual stats.
The minute you think this article is aimed at PF, then you are wrong in whatever bulls.hit that you spill out. Take this article in context, from the first MMD government to current government. Simply said, we are not seeing progress in the areas that require revamping to sustain our economy. Each day we are losing young people that are supposed to be contributing to the economy due to poor healthy institutions. The construction of roads is not strategic. Our key education institutions are not being given priority. And the author has just mentioned, their researches are funded from outside because our governments don’t care to utilize our local capabilities. But this should concern each and every one of us, and surely, that point should not be tied to any form of political affiliation.
I personally think even 3 to 5 manufacturing companies that can employ at least 4000 each over 3 years can quadruple the countries growth rate.
Lets talk value addition to resources we currently have.Why is the diasporan zambian maligned and not utilised?, their has been such a brain drain such that those back home are now devoid of exposure, financial and practical experience to bring our country at par with 21 century trends.
Axiomatic … and I totally agree with you on Industrialization. It’s the fastest way to grow an economy, period.
Why is Stuttgart the richest city in Germany? Because it’s HQ to Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Botsh, etc. it’s the industrial hub of Europe’s largest economy.
You first start with agriculture, that way you feed everyone healthy food, then you Industrialize, that way you employ the rest who are not in farming, the you export.
That was the same formula used by Japan, followed by South Korea and now China. Or you declare the entire country a Free Trade Zone, that’s the formula used by Dubai, Luxembourg and Monaco.
The latter works for small population countries while the earlier best suits Zambia due to high unemployment levels.
Great job.
You have got a very good article. You have spoiled it by the title. Many Zambians don’t think laterally. Many have missed the boat as you can see from the comments.
Key thing is that we must encourage manufacturing. Grow our own produce. Very soon we should say, no imported tomatoes into Zambia. No imported fish into Zambia. No imported meat into Zambia, etc. Then we invest in Zamefa, make our own fridges, make our own coolers, etc.
Often articles of this nature get spoiled by leaning too much on opposition political inclination or is it opposition politics rather than constructive paper. For that reason papers of this nature remain as academic as they are.
A well written article and Patriotic article as usual my brother.Please ignore the negative comments from the bankrupt commentators who always look at issues from the swallow and partisan angle bereft of any intellect.When i write my economic and financial analysis and commentary,i ignore the ignoramuses.
My concern is that we seem to take it for granted that the Chinese are doing a good job; fixing our roads, building new schools, hospitals, etc. A critical look at some of the new roads the Chinese have built in the recent past, one would see that some sections are showing signs of serious weaknesses – they are developing cracks and ridges. Take Great East Road, for example, the stretch from Luangwa Bridge to Mwami Border was recently resurfaced, but the road, especially on those hilly sections up to Nyimba have developed ridges due to heavy trucks. But engineers should know that hilly places slow down movement of traffic, especially heavy trucks laden with cargo. The weight of the trucks gets concentrated in those parts, thus causing those ridges.
The question is, where are the…
Ya, the usefulness of some of these useless studies
The world would miss a whole country of docile people, working to enrich the minority immigrants selling shawarma, ice cream, plastic shoes and herbal tea. We would leave a gaping hole where exploitation thrives.
Author, please we all know that you are a disgruntled UPND sympathizer, but dont go to extremes of thinking there is nothing good about our country, Zambia. To the contrary of your article, I dont believe that your analysis is balanced but inclined to opposition poor way of doing things. You could do yourself a big favor if your analysed things from this perspective. “What is the cost of having a rejected politician, HH, ever bent on destructive politics of opposing everything that an eligible Government is working on so hard to correct after years of neglect from previous governments?” “What is the effect of population increase on the same old infrastructure and how do we address this?” “What is the relevance of the opposition today in providing alternative solutions to our many…
contd
“What is the relevance of the opposition today in providing alternative solutions to our many challenges other than the personal agenda of getting the top job?” “What initiatives has the PF Government taken to address the huge tasks ahead and is there progress?” “What is the role of private and public participation in trying to achieve an accelerated development agenda?” If infrastructure development is key to the rapid socio-economic changes, why are those in opposition not encouraging Government in such initiatives?” “In what time frames can these desired achievements be attained and are we all supporting Government and not politicking all times?” If the author of this article genuinely attempted to answer these and many more questions, then one would think its a…
contd
We all know, HH and UPND dont mean well for Zambians but thank God, the initiatives that PF has clearly embarked on are bearing fruit, and with focus and determination the story is but truly changing and transforming Zambia for better and the momentum must continue!
Hoop… Hold your fire. In all the guy has said one thing cannot be denied. That is development should be national and not just city based.
Nothing wrong with his analogy.
Dr Sishuwa writes as if Zambia is an exception I have been privileged to travel all over the world and I can tell you for a fact that shopping malls are the norm wherever I went. Apart from creating employment for the locals, shopping malls also add beauty to a town or city.
Perhaps one can suggest that construction of shopping malls be extended to rural areas to create employment opportunities for our youths in these places.
I have visited the slums of London in UK, Washington DC in USA, Beijing in China, Algiers in Algeria, Nairobi in Kenya, Johannesburg in South Africa , Gaborone in Botswana and many other towns and cities around the globe, the situation is no different from Zambia’s. So what is Dr Sishuwa talking about?
That is what is worrying about today’s social-political-economic contribution and commentary. It’s too alarmist and based on lies. When we all accept the current status quo, putting our historical context into perspective, it’s a fact that there are positives and negatives and the former outweighs the latter. To label all as a crisis and total failure is retrogressive and is not doing anything to drive the country forward.
Capitalism is what we need,kwasila
With all honesty, it’s the outlined issues in the article that worry me a lot but most of the retrogressive responses/ comments. It’s very heartbreaking reading insults and negative comments on an honestly positive opinion based article which supposes to trigger our consciousness and cause us to have a meaning discussion on what best for a country we most of us call home.
If you are a thinker, you can reflect on this line from the article..”When I say ‘those in power’, I mean those in whose head and soul the pain of our pitiful state still strikes a chord.”
Thanks Sishuwa for your piece. Fair analysis given your declaration that your article is Limited (my word) to your travels (and to your knowledge if I may add). Admittedly Zambia has a long way to go but don’t parade your bias by stating that nothing has substantially changed with regards to food from 1980s. Do you know what you taking about? Yes we can get better deals about Malls. We should be debating the current actions and policies about infrastructure: roads, hospitals and schools. Next time avoid talk of…’opposition stronghold’…it gives you away!
…..from my recent travels to Zambia. Livingstone-Sesheke Road is in bad state but I was impressed with state of the art Mongu-Kalabo road. Also found Zimba-Livingstone part of the road in good shape than when I was last there. ‘Pedicle road’ through DRC almost done. The Levy Mwanawasa bridge at Chembe (if you never knew icikwepe keep quiet!), I was delighted to find Levy Mwanawasa hospital functioning and CBU school of medicine operational, then the Centre for tropical diseases at Ndola hospital. Cancer diseases hospital at UTH is also cool. Then Chipata-Mambwe road (to mfuwe!)..and I will not longer be embarrassed of our Airport once KKIA is done. Should I go on?
Almost forgot an excellent boarding school in Masaiti. Then a girls only technical school in Ndola-the first of its kind in Zambia. Kapasa Makasa University (under CBU!) was resurrected from white elephant. The almost finished great East road was most impressive. Copperbelt town roads are terrible, however. So is Kafue-Mazabuka portion of road. Drive to build more houses for many in uniform has been impressive!
Ladies and gentlemen, We have many challenges but let’s acknowledge what has been done by various governments. Then debate how we can do better. God bless Zambia.
@Zambian Citizen. You have out it far better than I have done in 3 posts. Thanks.
My answer to the question: poverty.
The thatched huts all over the country
We cannot and shall not solve problems at UNZA by throwing more money at it. The problem at UNZA is not funding. It is not government. The problem at UNZA is UNZA itself.
tonnes and tonnes of copper & cobalt would vanish.
The article though fueled by political energy,do hold truths in many parts but perhaps the question is what has been your own personal contribution that is calculated at putting a dumper to the current worrisome conditions?The realities that have been well elaborated in the article are not new to us,though some may resign themselves to accepting the ills of our country, we do have a sober cadre of young men and women who are committed to changing the status core.Now since you have come short of laying ground on the steps necessary to making the conditions right,allow me to help you
1.Zambia needs a leader and not a Politician as President:Zambia must seek to elect someone who has a heart for the people and to help you further,the person is Elias Chipimo Jr. as Republican President…