By Eng Kumbukilani Phiri
For the past few days I have been restricting myself from commenting on the matter concerning the Presidents call to relevant institutions created to promote youth entrepreneurship to show cause or risk being reshuffled or fired.
Speaking in Kabwe during the Central Province Patriotic Front Conference, President Lungu cautioned against the laissez-faire attitude most institutions mandated to help and support youth entrepreneurs show. The President called for immediate action failure to which he was going to reshuffle or fire some of them.
As a youth entrepreneur, when I listened to the President’s speech, I was filled with joy to the extent that I even shed a tear. For a number of times, I have bemoaned our lack of drive as a country to support local entrepreneurship. Most of the time, we have heard government officials boasting about inviting foreigners to come and invest in Zambia. This has always made me wonder whether Zambians are incapable of being investors in their own country. Most policies have been crafted and designed to attract foreign investors with tax holidays that go for many years, yet, local investors no matter the size of their investment do not enjoy similar incentives. Local investors are made to start paying taxes right from their first day of operations. Similarly, due to this discrimination in policy development that somehow favour foreign investors, even financial institutions in the country tend to be more supportive to foreign investors than to the local ones. I have seen some foreigners come with nothing, pick up a business idea locally, go to financial institutions and get funded, yet many locals have brilliant ideas which are never operationalized and end up going to the grave with the owners. It is just appalling.
Coming back to the Presidents call for support to youth entrepreneurs, I was reluctant to comment on this matter due to my own personal experiences as a local entrepreneur. In 2017, I had the worst experience of my life as a local businessman. To date, I am still shocked and traumatized at what I went through. To make matters worse, its now almost two years since that fateful day when our hope and investment got shattered by our fellow Zambians, but still to date no progress has been made for us to recover anything and probably allow us to invest in any of our many ideas that we have.
Prior to 2017, I had managed to build a very thriving business founding and managing three companies. One was involved in construction and real estate development, the other was involved in import and wholesaling of foreign products, and the last one was formed as a diversification into timber processing and export. The diversification into timber processing and export is what brought all the misery in my business life. Some of you may still remember the lamentations and pleas I made to see to it that at least, those of us who had invested genuinely and were operating within the law were given a fair treatment and if anything supported to build our businesses according to what the government wanted at the time. To cut the long story short, my company Green Lake Zambia Limited applied and was given a concession licence to harvest and process timber in Isoka. This was after meeting all the requirements that also included an Environmental Project Brief and consent from both the Chief and the local council. When the Minister addressed us and told us that no timber was going to leave Zambia unless it was at least processed into four corners, my company obliged and went further to acquire equipment to process the timber. However, after harvesting and processing the timber and just before getting an export permit for our first consignment, government banned the harvest and trade in Mukula and all export of timber unless in finished product form. This all happened when we had already made a huge investment in millions of Kwacha that left our bank account dry. The decision to ban harvesting and trade in Mukula could perhaps be justified given the rampant illegal dealings at the time. However, special consideration should have been put in place to secure investments for legal and genuine licence holding companies. This was never done and companies like ours suffered major losses and continue to suffer to date.
When the ban was effected, there was no prior communication to the concession licence holders as required by law. To our surprise we just saw security wings coming to our processing site and saying there was a ban on harvesting and processing of timber. They even arrested four of my innocent workers despite showing them that we were not operating illegally.
At the time all this was happening, I was abroad on a business trip which I had to abort and flew to Isoka via Mbeya in Tanzania. After four days in cells and after being denied bond, we finally managed to secure bail from the court for our four workers. Thanks to the three brave Isoka residents who came to our help despite being threatened by some local officials there. The case went on for 17 months, but the people who arrested my workers failed to prosecute the case until the magistrate decided to discontinue it. During this whole time, my workers were driving from Lusaka to Isoka every month spending thousands of Kwacha to go and appear in court just for a mention. I tried everything I could to seek answers and help from all the officials I knew. However, nobody seemed to have any answers or means to help.
What makes me cry to date is that, despite eventually understanding that we were victims of circumstances, nobody seemed bothered about our predicament. Worse still, nobody seemed bothered that a fellow Zambian had lost a huge investment that could be used to invest in other areas and create employment for the many unemployed Zambians especially the youths.
During the time when all this was happening, we were treated like common criminals. The security wings refused to look at our documentation and took our timber and dumped it at the DCs office together with timber from illegal operators. Surprisingly, it was not long before ZAFFICO came with Chinese buyers to load some of the timber that was dumped at the DCs office. Very shocking indeed. The remaining timber still rots at the DCs office having gone through many seasons of rains and hot weather eventually losing all the market value and can only be good for firewood at the moment.
When It became very clear to me that there was no one who was going to help me, I started panicking and ended up writing an open letter to President Edgar Chagwa Lungu that appeared as a feature story in the Daily Nation of the 4th of October, 2017 and was widely circulated among many online news platforms. I received calls from both Zambians and foreigners from all over the world. Many Zambians in the diaspora were very concerned about how I was treated, many feared that the same thing would happen to them if they decided to bring their hard-earned money to invest in the county. The truth is that, I came back to Zambia as an investor only that I was not a foreigner as Zambia is my own country.
I called for the Presidents help because I had tried to seek answers and solutions from the government officers, Directors, Permanent Secretaries, Ministers, etc., but none seemed to have any. To me it was clear that only the President being the most powerful man in the country would help me. Unfortunately, maybe due to his busy schedule, the President may not have seen my open letter to him as I never got any feedback from him or those around him. Maybe the people who were supposed to show him the open letter never bothered because it was a Zambian investor crying for help and not a foreigner. For all I know, President Lungu is a very caring leader who would have called me or instructed those mandated to deal with such issues to quickly find a solution for us. He just recently called a young artist who had made a portrait of him and offered to buy her paintings, which clearly shows that he very much cares about the talent and plight of the youths and I can never claim to be an exception. Sadly, to date our issue has remained unresolved and nothing from our investment has been recovered.
Now that the President has spoken and warned those that are not helping youth entrepreneurs like myself, my hope has been ignited that perhaps our issue will now be looked at with the seriousness it deserves.
Many of you may be wondering why we have not gone to court as a company. Firstly, when this thing happened, we had invested all our money in the business and remained with nothing to pay any lawyer. Secondly, four of our workers were still appearing in court. We wanted the case to be resolved first before we could think of anything else. Thirdly, I have so much trust and hope in our President as a father of the nation. I was so sure that after writing that open letter to him, once he got wind of it, a solution was going to be found. This is the more reason I am writing this article with confidence that at least now that he has made a stance, perhaps he will get to read this and help us find a solution. To be honest, we have brilliant ideas that we would like to implement and employee many more Zambians than the over a hundred our company has now.
My principle is that, instead of just being critical of government to provide all of us with employment, I decided to be creative and innovative enough to create employment for myself and other youths to supplement government effort.
Finally, I am still pleading with President Lungu to consider meeting some of us from the youths who have made a choice to venture into entrepreneurship. Your Excellency, any help you will render to the youths now will stand out as your legacy when you finally decide to retire one day.
God bless
The Author is the Chief Executive Officer Green Lake Zambia Limited
How can you support Lungu’s fire warning yet he hasn’t fired those failing Zambia on bigger enterprises like failing Zamtel,failing ZamRail, the failed take off of Zambia Airways etc?
Clearly the writer of this letter needs better advisors. The moment you sent an open letter to President Lungu was the day you sealed your fate. No leader wants to be chastised publicly. You may have been condemning the government but who is the government?
If I wherever you, I wouldn’t even have bothered writing this second open letter. I would have been at the gates of State House every day to request a private meeting. This second letter is like criticizing the president all over again.
@ #1.1
Still sucking to the most corrupt and incompetent regime in the history of Zambia?
This Olivia person IS in the PF and not just a supporter, that I can tell you so the sucking is intense.
Hope your businesses were not involved in getting tenders by corruption and bootlicking.
I APPLAUD YOU. YOU ARE ONE OF THE FEW ZAMBIANS I THOUGHT UPNDEADS YOUTHS WOULD BE LOOKING TO.
However, you should know better. Being in business, you have to embark on breathtaking risks. Which you did. Also if you study factors that affect business, Government regulation and policy also stand in the way.
I hope your other businesses are having their way. I agree with your article in most parts. Your concern is a loss of business on account of you acquiring expensive equipment due to Government policy on timber. It should have been a risky business yeah, sooner or later your business stood to be affected. There is no way Zambia was to sustain your timber business to overseas countries at the backdrop of inadequate tree replanting policy.
Calling Lungu “Father of the nation” is an insult to Zambians.
Mukula is for Tasila & Chinese Infestors, not locals.
One thing this author fails to understand is that LAZY LUNGU merely reads speeches…there is no follow through…he will be in EP reading the same speech even in 2021 he will read the same speech issue warnings. To date no one has been arrested for illegal export of Mukula logs.
So this CEO states that he made a huge investment but what happened after…unless this so called huge investment was his savings, tell us that side of the story as well did debt collectors come knocking?
Hello Kumbukilani.
Unfortunately, the president doesn’t seem to understand what entrepreneurs need in this country. For him entrepreneurs are mine scavengers on the Copperbelt, ise benangu we don’t count since we don’t sing them tunes.
this is a very touching and reasonable letter, you know what I have discovered our president is a very good and understanding father of our nation but to my view I think some of the people surrounding him are wrong because they are paid for not doing their jobs we are very much willing as youth to be good entrepreneurs but source of capital and support because only their children’s and relatives of the influential people in the systems are given privileges to access that in the end they just shudder the resources without achieving anything and they go scot free please help us.
Presido is also as bad as the people surrounding him mune.
Very loving and caring leader …..bla! bla! bla!. You betrayed Zambia and supported a clueless person to be president just because he is your tribes mate thinking that you will be benefit while others are being marginalized. Well, continue to sugar coat an incompetent dictator and these are the kind of mishaps to endure. Next time think before you cast your vote. What really did a whole Engineer see in Sata or Lungu to give them the precious vote to hold your life and the lives of your children. ‘As you make a bed, so you must lie.’ At the same time I feel sad over what the writer has gone through at the hands of criminals pretending to be a government
The Real Olivia Pompwe …
Are you listening to your foolish self? The president is a public figure and can be addressed with an open letter. why do you want the presidency to be confined in your bedroom like its a private affair?
You want him to be begging at the gates of state house .. are you phacking kidding me?
This leadership dosent care about genuine Zambian entrepreneurs unless those that are corrupt or worst still cadres! face the real truth!
SMFH!
Why waste time with foooooolish cadres? They think the President is some kind of king…this why the dont know about accountability and transparency
The Real Olivia Pompwe …
Are you listening to yourself? The president is a public figure and can be addressed with an open letter. why do you want the presidency to be confined in your bedroom like its a private affair?
You want him to be begging at the gates of state house .. are you kidding me?
This leadership dosent care about genuine Zambian entrepreneurs unless those that are corrupt or worst still cadres! face the real truth!
SMFH!
President Lungu is all talk and no action.He is CEO of country and he cannot pass the buck on You inth unemployment.His major weakness is he does not read widely and collect information by himself but over relies on adviser.He is the only President who has over delegated of his responsibilities.Advisors lie to him and he has no way of double checking.The man has no clue of the reality on the ground.
Edgar’s call is mere rhetoric, the biggest suppliers and contractors are those only close to him; the people who parrot ECL2021. The PF has divided the nation, things only work for those that support them. Even jobs are for cadres alone. This is what will cause the downfall of PF, and I am afraid the country might end up in the hands of the brutal Freemason and his goons, they have no mercy. All this will be because of PF greed and plain stoopidity
Have Unza lecturers been paid, or are they all assumed to become entrepreneurs as well?
Even our learned colleagues have also fallen victim to shipikisha club mentality, no salaries but pretending like everything is OK and
resigned to their fate.
Zambians can’t read people or predict what someone will become. Many of us in diaspora have learnt how to do that because it’s a jungle out here. The issues he went through out here you’ll be homeless, in deep debt or incarcerated so we can’t afford to vote based on a song, perceived humility and all the crap you’ve been told about someone. You’re a businessman don’t expect a failed lawyer to understand your issues
You have hit the point Lute
Imagine the author is basing his letter on a speech instead of tangible policies
Zambia’s wealth is in the pockets of politicians who are robbing it’s both directly and indirectly through poor salaries in the civil service, exobitant unreasonable taxes, road tax which is being paid twice instead of once with tall gates fees, teaching commissions, Health professions council of zambia, medical insurance etc. OUr country is lacking honest and descent leadership.
Civil servants salaries have been diluted from the time michael chilufya sata died. degree holders salaries were k6200 which was equivallent to $1000. But for now the take home net pay is now $500. What kind of leadership is this? On top of it they increased president and cabinet ministers salaries by more than 100%. Indeed Zambia is lacking leadership and their is a vacuum.
People have waken up that the…
There is a rightful ban of deforestation , are you and your company involved in any replanting of trees ???
When will you understand that this President you have has not direction and does not know where he wants to take this country for almost three years now he has never said anything to the citizens of this country about what he has for it its not what he thinks he can do but what he has achieved for himself that makes him stl want to continue other wise he has zero idea how to run a country.
They thing LAZY LUNGU is John Joseph Magufuli of Tanzania …LAZY is simply a tool for the corrupt elite; this is why he has nothing to do but wait for by-election and travel…he is simply happly to be President that’s an achivement for him that’s why they are happy to procure a $70 million Private Jet for him because they understand that he is a dull simpleton komboni man who gets excited by such things.