By Daily Revelation Editor
The decision by President Hakainde Hichilema to declare the drought situation the country is experiencing a national disaster is rational given the situation we are in.
It is true that the ongoing drought has brought devastation in terms of household food security in the country, receding water levels and by consequence a challenge on energy, among other challenges.
In declaring a national disaster, Hakainde announced several measures that would be put in place to try to mitigate the situation, including re-aligning the budget to meet the challenges and increased security transfers to those in affected areas.
Hakainde also said that the country would import more maize into the country and welcome donations from the cooperating partners. This is all good. However, even before getting to this, Hakainde should have borrowed from the dream Joseph interpreted for King Pharaoh in the Bible that there were going to be equal years of rain and famine in the land, and urged the Pharaoh to store up grain during the season of plenty in order to use it as a reserve during the time of famine. Alas, here in Zambia maize was being indiscriminately exported to other countries without due regard for the future that we could one day experience this sad situation we are experiencing now. The people who were given the responsibility to curb smuggling in the security wings, engaged in the opposite and participated in the pilferage of the commodity and lined their pockets in the process.
Today, we are now confronted with a situation that is staring us back in the eye over such mindless moves those in power encouraged. Today Hakainde is saying that the country will engage in buying the same maize commodity from the other countries. Meanwhile, you had all the reserves within but lacked foresight.
We hope the administration has learnt serious lessons not to repeat such costly mistakes in future especially on a commodity such as maize which is key in terms of national security.
And we wish to also raise the other important issues here so that this declaration will not be used as an excuse by those in government to try to link every future failure to the drought experienced this year. We wish to put it on record that at the time of this national disaster declaration, the average price of 25kg mealie-meal bags is over K300. It has increased to that amount from around K130 just over two years ago. The price of bread is now over K20 from around K14 just over two years ago, while the price of fuel is K31.12 from around K17.16. The Zambian Kwacha is now trading at K23 to US$1. We feel it is important to mention some of these figures so that they are not crowded with any eventual false argument that may be raised that these fundamentals worsened because of the severe droughts the country experienced.
On a positive note, the government will be justified to argue that there was no load shedding in the country at the time of the disaster announcement. However, this should not be used to severely punish Zambians into darkness. It should also not be used as a pretext to increase electricity tariffs and the already scaled up electricity connection fees.
The government should also announce stringent measures in terms of how resources aimed at mitigating the drought will be managed, as thieves and crooks of all hues and sizes have in the past used such initiatives to line their pockets.
Last but not the least, this situation the country faces will require concerted effort. No one should be given leverage to politicise this situation be it from the ruling and opposition political parties
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By Daily Revelation Editor
The decision by President Hakainde Hichilema to declare the drought situation the country is experiencing a national disaster is rational given the situation we are in.
It is true that the ongoing drought has brought devastation in terms of household food security in the country, receding water levels and by consequence a challenge on energy, among other challenges.
In declaring a national disaster, Hakainde announced several measures that would be put in place to try to mitigate the situation, including re-aligning the budget to meet the challenges and increased security transfers to those in affected areas.
Hakainde also said that the country would import more maize into the country and welcome donations from the cooperating partners. This is all good. However, even before getting to this, Hakainde should have borrowed from the dream Joseph interpreted for King Pharaoh in the Bible that there were going to be equal years of rain and famine in the land, and urged the Pharaoh to store up grain during the season of plenty in order to use it as a reserve during the time of famine. Alas, here in Zambia maize was being indiscriminately exported to other countries without due regard for the future that we could one day experience this sad situation we are experiencing now. The people who were given the responsibility to curb smuggling in the security wings, engaged in the opposite and participated in the pilferage of the commodity and lined their pockets in the process.
Today, we are now confronted with a situation that is staring us back in the eye over such mindless moves those in power encouraged. Today Hakainde is saying that the country will engage in buying the same maize commodity from the other countries. Meanwhile, you had all the reserves within but lacked foresight.
We hope the administration has learnt serious lessons not to repeat such costly mistakes in future especially on a commodity such as maize which is key in terms of national security.
And we wish to also raise the other important issues here so that this declaration will not be used as an excuse by those in government to try to link every future failure to the drought experienced this year. We wish to put it on record that at the time of this national disaster declaration, the average price of 25kg mealie-meal bags is over K300. It has increased to that amount from around K130 just over two years ago. The price of bread is now over K20 from around K14 just over two years ago, while the price of fuel is K31.12 from around K17.16. The Zambian Kwacha is now trading at K23 to US$1. We feel it is important to mention some of these figures so that they are not crowded with any eventual false argument that may be raised that these fundamentals worsened because of the severe droughts the country experienced.
On a positive note, the government will be justified to argue that there was no load shedding in the country at the time of the disaster announcement. However, this should not be used to severely punish Zambians into darkness. It should also not be used as a pretext to increase electricity tariffs and the already scaled up electricity connection fees.
The government should also announce stringent measures in terms of how resources aimed at mitigating the drought will be managed, as thieves and crooks of all hues and sizes have in the past used such initiatives to line their pockets.
Last but not the least, this situation the country faces will require concerted effort. No one should be given leverage to politicise this situation be it from the ruling and opposition political parties
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