30 June 2009
editorial
AT the Press conference he held last week, President Rupiah Banda tackled the most important and pertinent issues affecting the nation which we wish to highlight to those who might be suffering from amnesia.
It must be realised that the Press conference, the second since President Banda assumed office last year, was being held against a backdrop of a strike by nurses and other health workers, while donors were genuinely expressing their concerns arising from reports of corruption in the Ministry of Health.
These were issues that the opposition unfortunately wanted to capitalise on and portray the Government as being in a crisis. They naively rated the Press conference as having failed to address issues.
Opposition leaders must not hide behind words such as 'issues' when they brush off what the president said at the Press conference. What are those 'issues'?. Perhaps we could tell them just what some of the issues were.
To begin with, the president addressed the 'issue' of the striking nurses and health workers who, despite being given a 15 per cent salary increment, remained adamant demanding a higher percentage.
At 15 per cent, the personal emoluments would now be K5.2 trillion out of the K10.6 trillion domestic revenue, translating to 48.9 per cent of the latter income. Surely, can Zambians support a decision to spend half of the Budget on one per cent of the population or 170,000 people at the expense of other demands such as medicines? Anything above 15 per cent would have translated to that.
Secondly, the president addressed the issue of corruption in relation to donor support. So much has already been said on the corruption scam at the Ministry of Health involving over K27 billion, resulting in some donors suspending aid.
And in order to address some of the uncalled-for expenses in Government, the president disclosed measures that had been put in place to control expenditure.
His concern was not meant to lecture to some emerging young and raw politicians, but to create a conducive environment where development is at the core of discussions.
These are just a few of the salient 'issues' the president addressed at the Press conference last week. If these are not issues, then we wonder what the opposition leaders will be addressing.
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How strange i is that government papers such as the Times of Zambia priase their Presidents regardless. As someone who listened to President Banda's press conference I could not disagree more than with the editorial. We all know that President Banda is not a charismatic leader but unfortulately he has proved that he is no statesman either. Where was vision for the people of Zambia - concrete strategies for solving problems or setting a course to follow to improve the lot of ordinary Zambians - sadly the only course was akin to a drunken captain navigating through… [Read Full Text]