By Agness Changala
President Hakainde Hichilema has declared the current prolonged drought spell that the country is experiencing as a national disaster and emergency.
And President Hichilema says the current projections on the effects of the drought situation facing the country are that over a million farming households will be affected.
Meanwhile, President Hichilema said the government would consider importing additional electricity, including rationing whenever necessary.
In his National Address on the drought situation in the country, President Hichilema said Zambia was facing a severe drought, one of the kind in many years.
“I have not seen this kind of drought for many years. Being a village boy, I could not remember a particular year when the community could not even taste pumpkins from that years’ crop. Never seen it before, it’s my first time,” President Hichilema said.
He said the drought situation had been caused by the El Nino weather conditions in the 2023/2024 season.
The President observed that last year the country had a combination of floods and droughts in the same season.
“So this is a compounded situation and this is being influenced by the climate change phenomenon and the negative effects of climate change. This drought has devastating consequences on many critical sectors such as agriculture, water availability and indeed energy supply especially for a country like ours whose energy mix is still tilted towards hydro,” he said.
“When you have a drought like this, you have a dramatic effect on the energy supply as well. This creates risk to our national food security and livelihoods of our millions of people.
“As you know a lot of our people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods and it is important that we understand the gravity of this drought from that angle.”
The President said drought also negatively affected the economic growth agenda of 2024 which was dubbed as a year of economic expansion for jobs, business opportunities, and for sustainable social support.
He however said the government was determined to continue with this narrative of 2024, being an economic year of expansion.
President Hichilema said the destruction caused by the prolonged dry spell was immense, adding that nearly 84 of 116 districts were severely affected.
He said those affected were from Lusaka, Central, Copperbelt, Eastern, Northern Western and Southern provinces.
President Hichilema said at national level the estimated planting area was 2.2 million hectares, and that of this total approximately, one million hectares had been destroyed by this drought.
He said the dry spell was projected to continue even into the month of March.
“The current projections are that over a million farming households will be affected. Equally affected as I said earlier, the energy sector is equally affected and the country is expected to have deficit of 450 megawatts and this may extend to over 500 megawatts of electricity this year and you know what this means to our economy, our mines which we have promoted heavily and obviously to agriculture,” he said.
The President said the drought had also affected surface and ground water.
He declared the prolonged drought as a national disaster.
“Fellow citizens in view of the challenges the country is facing, the government has taken a decisive decision as a government and in accordance with the Disaster Management Act Number 13 of 2010 and other relevant legislation, as a servant of the people we, I, we hereby declare the prolonged drought spell as national disaster and emergency. Officially declared today,” he said.
President Hichilema said in view of the above the government would take many actions ameliorate and mitigate the situation.
Among the many measures to be undertaken is that the government would channel more resources towards humanitarian relief to ensure that affected citizens do not go hungry.
He said the government would look at importing additional electricity including rationing electricity as is necessary and would also promote energy sources.
The President said the government would ensure that citizens do not engage in negative behaviors such as burning trees and grass upon which the community depends to feed livestock.
He said the councils would come up with laws to ensure those that engaged in these activities are punished.
President Hichilema said the government would ensure additional maize and other foods are brought into the country to address this deficit.
He said the government will leverage the use of Zambia’s defence forces and directed all of them to get involved in the production of food to save lives and families.
The President said the government will work with all farmers to plant more crops now and use irrigation methods to produce food.
He also said the Ministry of Community Development and other stakeholders should enhance social support programs to the vulnerable especially in the drought affected areas.
President Hichilema also said the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) should enhance community sales in the communities focusing on the data that has been collected.
He called on all the partners, local and international to avail any excess food (maize) and other foods they may have.
The President said some partners had already expressed their willingness to come on board, mentioning the British, the UN system, the World Bank Group and others that are clear that support from them will come.
He directed that all resources that are generated for this call and declaration of disaster and emergency would be applied for the intended purposes.
“There would be accountability here. As always since we took over office. We have been talking about accountability. Prudent use of resources. Shifting resources away from consumption expenditure to more needy areas like this now than never before,” he said.
The President also warned that anyone found abusing resources meant for the need are on their own.
He said the government would also re-align the 2024 budget which Parliament approved to take money to the needy area.
