By Patson Chilemba
Former finance minister Ng’andu Magande says the government has not told Zambians what is in the $1.4 billion IMF deal so that people can debate it.
And Magande said dishing out money to youths and women in cooperatives is not a sustainable way of utilising resources, saying the government should instead reward individual initiative.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Magande was asked if the IMF deal was the only way out of the county’s malaise. Responding, Magande said: “But you see like I asked you at the beginning, has the government told us what the package is?”
“But for us with Mwanawasa I used to say we have now HIPC, the conditions under HIPC are 15 and the conditions are as follows. Even in my Book I have actually listed those 15 conditions. They should because then if one condition is going to be unpopular then they have to see how they can talk to the IMF and perhaps say can you modify this condition,” Magande said. “During Mwanawasa’s time if you remember we were supposed to privatize all those companies, but at the end we said no for Zesco because we wanted to put up all these big projects like Kafue Gorge. We said we can’t privatize Zesco, ‘we want to do this as government.’ So we went to them instead of privatising Zesco we called it commercialising.”
Magande said said conditions were not always cast in stone s they could always s change.
“The people must be able to debate the conditions. We had conditions like ‘you must now fill up the positions at the AIDS center’, we immediately said but this is a simple one so we advertised and recruited a director general. That’s how we got free money, $42 million for HIV AIDS,” Magande said. “I know that there is a deal but I don’t know the conditions. If they were told that for us to give you this $1.4 billion you must remove subsidies on fertilizer. The government can say if we remove subsidies on fertilizer the fertilizer will be very expensive. ‘Why don’t we use part of this $1.4 billion to start a fertilizer manufacturing plant?’
“Then instead of going to World Bank alone, they go to ADB, the ADB president is an agriculturist, he moved agriculture in Nigeria. They could go there and say can you help us to start a proper operating fertilizer plant? And with modern equipment we can get a state of the art equipment and the fertilizer will be cheaper. So even if you have removed subsidies on imported fertilizer in the next two, three years we could be giving our people the cheap fertilizer the President promised.”
Magande said just as the government was talking about a plan for tightening, they should also have a plan for the loosening once the conditions have been met to make Zambians aware of the direction the country was going to.
He said programmes such as the recent distribution of money to the youths on the Copperbelt were not sustainable.
“So in the end of all this tightening, what are the programmes and projects the government wants to release for the people to start again relaxing? And I heard two days ago they were dishing out some K30 million for youth and women but for me that is not a programme,” Magande said. “Money is there yes, it’s being given to these people but there is no return. What are they supposed to do? What is the project they are supposed to do? And if they only asked some of the people who have been in government for long.”
Magande said founding president Dr Kenneth Kaunda started with cooperatives in 1968 but the whole thing failed.
“By the time we realised what was happening the money was just being spent on useless projects. People were forming cooperatives in order to be given money. So even now I am sure that some young people who got some money over the weekend and were told form cooperatives, if they got that money it’s already finished,” Magande said. “And I want anybody in government now talking of cooperatives to take me to a cooperative of 10 people who have been successful. Nothing! Individual initiative is very important and that is what spurs any development. It’s the people who want to develop themselves to look after themselves.”
Magande suggested that the government should start lending money to individual young business people whose projects have been properly appraised and whose projects must be supervised.
“The cooperatives, let them show me one person who is a millionaire because he joined a cooperative. It doesn’t work. It failed because cooperatives haven’t got strict rules like a company. The President has already said ‘I am embracing everybody politically. I am embracing every body in terms of order’,” Magande said. “Why can’t he now say I am embracing everybody in terms of ideas. Let’s sit down and you tell me some of you who have never been allowed in government, what ideas they have. And then he should pick on those ideas and look after those people who would have brought those ideas so that he can help them with capital.
“If it is farmers we will have to look for land as government, subdivide the land and then give it to young people and then give them capital like tractors and irrigation equipment on loans.”
Asked if he has been in touch with the President and those in government to offer them such advice, Magande said he has always been around since he left government.
“If I get a consultant it’s a local consultant. I haven’t got a consultant which takes me even for two weeks out of the country. And I have said if the people who are in the government now, even people who are in the private sector now,” Magande said. “If they need to consult and they feel I am worthy consulting I am here. I am available.”
Magande said former president Frederick Chiluba asked Zambians to tighten their belts, something they willingly accepted but he did not have a programme on how to loosen the belt, that’s why Zambians started buying “tu pamela” in the process
He said when Mwanawasa succeeded Chiluba he talked about the same programme, but insisted on strictness on himself and the people who served under him in terms of financial prudence.
Magande said there was a striking resemblance in events during the time Mwanawasa took over and now when President Hichilema has taken over, saying during that time the country was beset with the HIV/AIDS pandemic, had insurmountable debt and was going through a HIPC programme and also experienced severe droughts. He said President Hichilema was being faced with the same debt programme, Coronavirus pandemic and there was also the threat of drought.
“Mwanawasa asked the same, but at end of it he said ‘I will be strict with my officers and myself.’ So he actually squeezed himself to an extent that some meetings he would be sending ministers or the vice-president to attend. There was a drought. So that caused a problem because apart for the economics which were not going right we ended up with a drought now, and the donors said we are ready to help you because we have seen you ‘are introducing systems for good governance and they offered him Yellow GMO maize which he refused,” Magande said. “Mwanawasa said to us how do we avoid this because we have the land, we have the water and we have the people. That’s when we conceptualized the growing of winter maize. People’s faith in Mwanawasa grew and whatever he said they listened. That time we had a serious problem of AIDS just like Covid so what Mwanawasa did was he said help us and for first time we got $42 million for HIV AIDS…And then he introduced ARVs which are being given free to everybody.”
Magande continued.
“From there he said apart from this ‘I don’t want us to be dependent on other people, I want us to be independent.’ So we started bringing out programmes of youths, programme in women, started funding a bit the constituency fund and so on,” Magande said. “But one of the things that was missing was foreign currency and everybody knew that the foreign currency was coming from the mining companies, so we came up with a new law in mining.”
Magande said fortunate enough the copper prices were booming at that time just like they are doing well now in the international market.
“So we said we can’t miss this copper price, it’s so good. So we brought in new taxation system for the mines and that attracted most of the mines you find around. So they started generating the foreign currency which Mwanawasa was using for building schools, attending to hospitals and for even this cash transfers. And because of that, employment went up, so that in 2002 from something like minus 2 percent of GDP growth we ended up with 7 percent GDP growth,” he said.
Magande said in foreign travels, President Mwanawasa introduced a limit of not more than 19 people for the most important summits.
“And the president himself Mwanawasa was the one checking who should be on the list. The secretary to the cabinet would produce the list of the delegation then he sends it to the Ministry of Finance , I go through with my officers to see how much it would cost. Once I had a cost then we send it to the president, we sit there the tree of us then he says ‘why is this officer on this trip? We had to justify why the officer was on the trip,” said Magande, adding that at one point president Mwanawasa went to a country and found officers there who were not on the list and inquired what they were doing there.
He said when he (Magande) and the other officials explained that they were part of the advance part, president Mwanawasa asked why they were so many of them.
He started asking officers for their responsibilities, ‘what are you doing here?’” said Magande.
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