Dear President Lungu,
This is written with the best interest of the country at heart. I do not claim to know it all but I beg to be allowed to make some suggestions which can be debated and worked out among all concerned. I wish you every success.
In the first place, I would urge you to make REAL PEACE in the country. Our Lord Jesus Christ, Lord of Zambia, told us that when you bring your sacrifice to the altar, and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and first BE RECONCILED to your brother. Notice that it may not be you who has a problem against him but your brother has against you. Your national altar is of no value unless you heed this injunction. Be reconciled with the opposition leaders who have so much against you. Zambia has only prospered when the leaders have been reconciled.
In the second place, I urge you not to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has told you what COMMON SENSE and many million Zambians ALREADY told you about how to run the economy. Five years ago, numerous voices were heard that called on your government to stop spending as though there was no tomorrow. Those warnings fell on deaf ears. Granted, you took over when your predecessor had already committed the country on this treacherous path, but you could have told the truth to people. Instead of that, you wanted to placate people in your party by pledging to continue another man’s ‘vision,’ confessing that you had no vision of your own. To that end, you owned the program and shared in the culpability of the reckless expenditure.
[pullquote]I urge you not to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)[/pullquote]
I have seen the ‘development’ indeed. People are happy to drive on paved roads and shop as close to home as possible. They are happy to have schools and hospitals near by. What people also see is how young men and women in their 20s got wealthy overnight by winning contracts and tenders in dubious and suspicious circumstances! Mr President, BIG GOVERNMENT IS A BIG LEAK OF MONEY. The MORE GOVERNMENT SPENDS, THE MORE IT WASTES. We have very inadequate institutions in Zambia that can check and counter corruption when there is a lot of money flying around.
Please Mr President hear us.
Make your government as small as possible so that it can become more transparent and less wasteful. Large amounts of government money in circulation stifles the private economy. It is this economy that contributes to the treasury in terms of taxes. The people who win government tenders pay peanuts to their workers, do shoddy jobs, bribe the government inspectors and pocked huge sums of money for their personal use. The jobs they create are unskilled at best and temporal at worst. Worst of all is that these contractors are your political party praise singers! If these tenders were really open and transparent, why is it that those who oppose the government are unlikely to win them?
Mr President, you do know of some of your friends and relatives who have benefitted from these schemes.
Now that I have asked you not to take IMF money, I am going to show you how you can raise your own money.
1. Save 2% of GDP.
Create an account where no matter what happens, this year you save at least $450 million. This money ought to go into a reserve account and to make sure that future governments do not raid this ‘war chest,’ enact this into law. This money should never be touched except when there is a real global economical crisis or a terrible natural disaster has hit Zambia.
2. Trim the government. It is not the existing civil servants that must be retrenched, it is your ministers and their accompanying ‘furniture.’ Cabinet ministers are a huge drain on the treasury. They will have several vehicles which need to be maintained, fuel costs, housing costs, air travel, conferences, workshops &c.
3. Decentralise and invest in smart government.
The Zambian people are surreptitiously taxed through spending on travel from one place to another to get their business done. One has to travel from Chingola to Ndola, from Nyimba to Chipata, from Sesheke to Mongu to get to a Ministry of Lands office! These are enormous distances.
4. Do not spend what you do not have.
While borrowing is inevitable, never borrow for consumption. Do a business plan with projected forecasts as to how a project will pay for itself. There is no doubt that schools are a very good investment in the future generations, though that may not be obvious in monetary terms, but other projects need to be weighed. How many hospitals does Zambia need? Can you justify spending millions of dollars building hospitals that are so substandard, poorly equipped and scarcely manned and therefore, shunned by the citizens in preference to private institutions? These are white elephants, costly and not of any real use.
5. Private-Public partnerships.
This is where the future of the economy rests. Let the government co-operate with proven private enterprises. Right now the country needs a national air carrier. There are Zambians running airlines already and the government can support them to expand. I believe that it was wrong for the MMD government to let Zambian Airways go under just because of personal issues. It was not in the national interest to allow that company to fold. The US government bailed out private motor car manufacturing companies. The UK government is helping the private Indian owned Tata Steel because it is in UK national interest.
6. Take the AUDITOR GENERAL’S report SERIOUSLY PLEASE.
Every year, the AG reports on government waste and nothing is done about it. Why audit if you cannot act? This office as it is now, is a waste of taxpayers money. But it should not be. The men and women in the AG’s office work very hard to reflect to the nation how their money is spent but the culprits go unpunished and in some cases retain their stations in government.
7. Curb corruption in your government and among your friends. I believe that it is time that something like a leadership code should be introduced in Zambia. We need probity and transparency. The Anti-Corruption and the Drug Enforcement Commissions must be reorganised into Economic Crimes, Serious Crimes and Serious Fraud offices. All these should fall under the National Prosecution Authority, led by the Director of Public Prosecution. There should be no political interference whatsoever. It is laughable that DEC arrests an individual with a few grams of chamba! The police can do that! DEC was meant to go after big money that has the ability to distort the national economy. Unfortunately, it has not lived up to the billing.
8. Statistics and planning.
This has been the achilles heel of Zambia since independence. We have shortages of school places, hospital beds and employment opportunities. We have congested roads, insufficient energy and shortage of electricity and water supplies. All these have happened because of lack of planning. The population of Zambia is among the fastest growing in the world. Everyone knows this but no one seems to plan for it. Now this is not just a problem of government, but it is also personal. One thing that hits you when you walk through the streets in Zambia, is the number of little children! There are thousands of them in the cities and hundreds in the districts. Their progenitors seem not to care where they will go to school when they reach of age! More than 1 million people turned 16 between 2011 and 2016. In the developed countries these will be leaving secondary education to go into tertiary education or find employment. Do we have 1 million post grade 12 places for these people? Millions of cars have been imported from abroad without a corresponding expansion in road capacity. The railway system has been deliberately sabotaged by the powerful people in Zambia who have entered the bulk carriers’ business! There seems to be a haphazard construction of buildings in many places without due regard to the environmental, aesthetic and demographic issues. These things have contributed to the energy crisis, and deforestation! Our ecosystems are out of balance.
We need to make better use of the available economic, population and census statistics available to us.
If and only if, this prudent house keeping fails, then only can we be justified to call for external help.
By Dr.Charles Ngoma
Aah Dokotola well done ,
Sad part is that the poor Doc will be crucified for these beautiful thoughts. I am sure PF will say that Dr Ngoma is campaigning for HH.
Okay, let rewind………<<<<<<
1. My Lungu did not win these elections cleanly.
2. Inasmuch as I agree with this letter and its content, this is a wrong starting point, the first paragraph probably is.
3. Mr Lungu's aim is to secure his "presidency" that is why he is investing in big killer machine army vehicles instead of in agriculture.
4. I have a few doubts that the Doc is very sincere in his approach. Since I like seeing through people, the Doc's attempt is to legitimize "President" Lungu to try and make peace with the opposition.
Okay, let others air their opinions.
correction… “lets rewind:…
When was this man born.many zambians are living in denial to the fact that lungu is visionless and not a christian.what most intellectuals think is the best approach to peace and economic recovery lungu does the opposit.we are in on a wrong path;we had the chance to redeem ourselves,the rest is history.
THE DOC. SUGGESTS AUSTERITY MEASURES
============================
One can’t help but pat you on your back for that timely advice. I hope all this is not only academic. I guess the real question is why does Government want to borrow from the IMF? If copper is still our Forex earner, how is it performing now? If government coffers at present can sustain us until we engage agro-economics to complement the depleting contribution of copper to the national treasury, you make sense. A resounding No to national borrowing is heavily encouraged but for the credibility and valuable realization of viable alternative sources of government funds. Economists warn and make sense economically not politically especially when you couple this with promises made at campaign time. Serious austerity…
…. measures are a way to go indeed.
wise words, if the president is serious he get get this advice, Dr, you forgot one thing, he should also stop the nonsense of all ministers going to airports when he is leaving the country and coming back. damn all ministries come to a halt. its so stupid and shows laziness, PS, ministers should have 1 car each, why do they have 3 vehicles each??
Good points. ECL must learn to listen to cries of the Zambia people and above all, should address the limping economy at the earliest.
Sometimes one might mean well, but should such letters be sent to Lusaka Times instead of State House where the President has his office?
These outbreak of DR. Nsonso, is that really a letter to Edgar. Edgar only reads about HH.
Sorry, but you have to be literate and intelligent to read and understand this letter. So Mugabe (who is now laughing at Zambians) must read it to Banda who must now read it to Lungu. Lungu has put all Banda’s henchmen in power and is just a substitute president. Banda is now Zambia’s president. Zambians can scream one nation one people all they want buthte rotteness has now set in. Corruption, and the muzzling of freedom of the press and speech will be removed. When Zambians start their long trek to Malawi and Zimbabwe for food then the cycle will be complete. Zambians had one of the best countries in Southern Africa, but now we will see what happens when the common man is too scare to stand up for their rights. The political prostitutes in the Constitutional Courts will fly…
but the rotteness has now set in.
Very well said Dr.Charles Ngoma. I hope this message gets to the President. He needs more advisers such as your self.
Am worried about the platforms these guys use in as much as they may mean to advise
GOOD POINTS FOR THOSE WHO ARE ABLE TO READ BETWEEN THE LINES & NOT ONLY ALONG THE LINES. WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT, ECL WILL REMAIN IN POWER TILL NEXT ELECTION. THE BEST WE CAN DO NOW IS TO OFFER TRUTHFUL ADVISE COZ IF EL FAILS, WE ALL FAIL & WILL FEEL THE WORST PART OF THAT FAILURE WILL BE FELT BY US THE ORDINARY CITIZENS
Lungu in power until 2021 is a recipe and GUARANTEE of FAILURE! The only hope for Zambia is to get this thieving thug out of State House before it is not too late if it is not too late already. He has shown his hypocrisy, untruthfulness and dictatorial intentions, and his selfish greed that has no limits. Stealing elections, corrupting the Judiciary, no freedom of speech and of the media are only the start. In five years he will even put Mugabe to shame.
Zambia is indeed a country of jokers. One moment, leaders and their cadres are dancing and shouting ‘sontapo’ while pointing at roads, schools, and hospitals built on inkongole. The next moment, the country is begging for a bailout from the IMF (even before they start repaying the existing external debt of US$9 billion)!! Whats wrong with this country, kanshi?
Ba Katie, IMF was an issue even BEFORE the elections. Voters voted with that consideration in mind. They still have confidence in ECL than HH. IMF and Debt is a fact of ALL gov’ts in the world. Tell us here which country does not have Debt and does not use IMF?
Dr Drum, is just patronising and practically banging his own drum in mock intelligence. If any citizen had to tell the gov’t to open an account and save….then one would be inclined to totally dismiss such a gov’t as unlearned and incompetent rather than give advice which they would not be bake to understand! If they trim the gov’t, the sane Mr Drum will bang on about rising unemployment! No 3, advised as Decentralise and invest in smart gov’t IS REALLY ABOUT DISTANCE OF TRAVEL to get to gov’t offices and somehow that becomes higher tax. The writer needs to refrain from Mockery because often people who use that tone end up proving how malicious, snide and ignorant THEY are and indirectly proving their ‘ Mockees’ whom they seek to denigrate are smarter.
AND the DEC has done very well in the last weeks, we have all witnessed.
As for number 8., I am disturbed at Dr Drums inability to spit his twisted take on things. The unprecedented increase in population us due to lack of family planning in part. Do citizens not have the responsibility to family plan? If they don’t ….the gov’t us to blame fir nit meeting with the impromptu demands of those populations? AND is the INCREASED BORROWING, due to the need to cope with providing for these populations that are growing above GDP capability? I am not completely, down with your write up Doc, but you seriously need to balance your assessments. Try to be objective as in try to understand his those things came about. ZAMBIANS NEED TO DESPERATELY STOP with political divisive conduct and rally behind gov’t. Let’s not Micky Take but seriously advise.
PARDON THE TYPOS!!
@ Patriot Abroad@ The bone of contention is not that the Govt should stop borrowing but the Govt should borrow with a plan. They say Rome was not built in a day. The problem in Zambia is that we want to build Rome in a day hence now we are running to the devil for crucifixion.
Very good advice though not easily practical. On reconciliation, it is not possible as long as GBM is the advisor to HH. It must start with Guy Scott ….he must set aside his hatred for Edgar. Next HH must get rid of one GBM. Put pride aside and everything will fall in place.
Giuseppe aka Gemisson the puppet dances to his master’s strings will we the citizenry perish! We will see no austerity measures this year! Our mothers will suffer and our youth will continue beening short changed while the puppet panders only to the bidding of his master! Shame
True Dr Ngoma . Let ECL and group read through and understand.in BEMBA we say uwakebele infwaya kwanoko mutansh’ being fore warned is being fore armed”get to work soon ,tomorrow might be to late heed to the free advise from your own kin and kith
KALOBA WAFWA
Hes drunk, can’t read that letter ….
ale kolwa apa so…
good points indeed, we need such people to give advice to our leaders if we need to develop our nation, hope your letter rich destination or to our leader ,Well done. am not in support of IMF we don’t need that because the condition of IMF are bad.
Thanks Doc. Lungu is drunk with power and Jameson and he can’t heed your free advice. Mutati and Mulusa are already drinking IMF coffee. You talk of good roads: did you see Mr Lopes’ video which someone posted here? you can cry a tear to see Cairo road and great East road before Manda Hill with no paint on the roads. on top of this rubbish or papers are lying on all roads. good luck Zambians
Well said Doc. We need more people like you in society to make Zambia a better place for all of us. It may not all be done at once and perfectly but once some of those things are considered, the difference can be seen and might just put a smile on some of our faces who knows. I hope and pray that this letter gets to the president and that he considers.
GOD BLESS ZAMBIA
This is the problem with Zambians don’t listen to Intanation news , the so called world strongest economies ? USA , Britain you name it there do borrow in trillion .
You should borrow because your neighbour borrowed?
Dr Ngoma you are a smart Man, However that’s too much stuff for the RIFFRAFFS in government to comprehend.
“Can you justify spending millions of dollars building hospitals that are so substandard, poorly equipped and scarcely manned and therefore, shunned by the citizens in preference to private institutions? These are white elephants, costly and not of any real use.”
This statement by by Dr Charles Ngoma shows that he is not a an ordinary Zambian because if he was, then he would know that government health facilities are crowded with people wanting services. Only people like Dr Ngoma go to private institutions.
Where is chief Mwanachingwala?
Good advice but the tone of the so called Dr Ngoma’s language is not good for a letter to a head of state..! How does he expect a person he calls no vision to take his advice? Lets avoid being emotional wen advising our friends..! Good advise though..!
That’s where the problem is! The tone should be stately and sober. This letter though deep in content, looses it’s value when you factor in the tone in which it was written. Dr Ngoma the President has an office at State House not Lusaka Times. When he ignores you, you start crying foul. This is the same as firirng Canisius Banda via social media!
52 years after independence and the country still remains at the bottom rung of the most impoverished nations in the world. Even war-torn Somalia is better off, what does that say about Zambia’s leadership? Me thinks they are retarded and incapable of learning and getting things right.
@wantashi, has Lungu been president for 52 years? No. We’re all to blame for accepting corruption. Most of the bloggers here have engaged in some form of corruption yet are quick to point their fingers at the government. Before prepaid metres we used to pay Zesco bills through the nose while Zesco employees drunk 24/7. But today I pay around k200/ month and these Zesco guys have disappeared from the bars.
doc ngoma…
please sit down. point 4; and point 8 contradict each other. you dont want ecl to borrow, you say ‘he doesnt have so he cant spend’ and then you say ‘build more more roads to match the car imports and school fscilities nafimbi nafimbi….’
i was trying to follow you nomba i think youre looking for audience. anyway better than me going out for a smoke, atleast youve kept me busy for five minutes…
I think the contradiction is in your mind. Read again. Borrow not for consumption. Borrow what will bring returns and spend only what you have. There is no contradiction. You have A and you borrow B. Now you have A+B, so spend A+B and not A+B+C. C is deficit which you did not have.
No need to take the above article personal, the advice is of national welfare. This ,whether or not it’s from someone in opposition party, it in itself is not partisan. It has the interest of all Zambians at heart. Rather than waiting until he comes into power this patriot has already started contributing ideas to build a better and prosperous Zambia for all. I hope our president will find some useful points in his views.
the unfortunate part is that pf cadres are now associating this DR to the opposition party upnd instead of getting the really advise given free of charge. why borrow for useless things like by elections for example what used to happen. sub standards roads and hospitals without equipments
The waste and sudden think is to have someone without economical knowledge busy refitting facts.
may President Sata rest in internal peace, because he would have told the opposer’s opinions to deficient and analytical impotent.
Good points Dr and only those who spent time in both government and private schools will be able to reasonate with you sir.
keep it up!