THE FUTURE OF ZAMBIA
Questioning our learned assumptions
Most Zambians believe what they are taught in class and what they read in books or hear on the news. But once in a while we must re-examine what we believe in light of a dynamic economic, social, and political world.
For example, many of us were taught in primary and secondary school that the greatest disadvantage Zambia has is that it is landlocked. But that is not necessarily true anymore. With all the recent technological, economic, and political advancements, Zambia’s landlocked position, surrounded by nine countries including Burundi on Lake Tanganyika, is our greatest advantage.
Only three other countries in the world have more neighbors. We must exploit this most rare hub-and- spoke advantage and turn Zambia into an international hub of education, health, technology, finance, logistics, communication, and global or continental political institutions.
It is thus logic to expect the mission of Industrial Development Corporation to align with developing Zambia’s competitive advantages in these sectors.
We must also question the sensibility of policies such as targeting zero corruption, zero inflation rate, and zero carbon dioxide emission (in essence full compliance with climate change agreement etc.).
As a developing country, there will always be a certain amount of corruption to grease the wheels of development, and there will always be a certain amount of inflation because greed and fear are built-in behavioural mechanisms in humans.
Greed makes entrepreneurs charge more and the charges and consequent changes in prices are what are reflected in the inflation rate. This is why inflation can never be zero and as such no policy should target zero inflation.
With regard to climate change, the majority of the Zambian people do not have access to the technology to live by without endangering the climate.
The country cannot simply adopt policies of developed countries without consideration of its people who have no access to lifestyles of developed nations. This is the realistic approach for our country, not that we don’t believe in the negative effects of climate change.
These three realities, low level corruption, non-zero inflation rates, and paying less attention to climate change, seem to constitute the rite of passage not only for our country but for all other developing countries.
The need to re-examine things we have been taught or told extends to decisions we make across the economic, social, and political spectrum. For example, the training of accountants and the introduction of VAT as a taxation system in Zambia.
Just because Zambian accountants are trained under the British system doesn’t mean we have to use a British taxation system even when that system doesn’t make much economic sense for our country.
At this stage in the life of our country we have enough fellows in the accounting bodies (CIMA and ACCA), to design and develop training and certification for accountants locally in Zambia, and to design and implement a tax system that logically aligns with the realities of the Zambian economy.
The country shouldn’t be spending foreign exchange on training such accountants anymore. We should look again at what used to be the Zambia Diploma in Accountancy, our own local accounting qualification, and enhance it to an international level.
After all, lawyers and medical doctors are trained and qualified locally (unless one can argue, convincingly, that our learned friends are not, after-all, learned enough, or that our doctors are borderline if not absolute quacks).
Responsibility of professional Zambians
In addition, accountants, like all professional Zambians, must have a national interest in their practice and not take part in designing and implementing schemes that defraud the Zambian people of tax revenue (estimated at over $500 million per year, (Alexander Readhead, 2016; Transfer Pricing in the Mining Sector in Zambia)).
For example, the price transfer scheme recently found unconstitutional by the Tax Appeals Tribunal and Supreme Court in two landmark cases (Nestle Zambia v Zambia Revenue Authority (March 2019) and Zambia Revenue Authority v Glencore Mopani Copper Mines (May, 2020)) defrauded the Zambian people out of more than K250 million.
Zambian professionals must say something if they see something. Perhaps parliament should enact a whistle blower legal framework within which whistle blowers would be protected.
The same expectations extend to lawyers, teachers, doctors, law enforcement, civil servants, and other professions.
The Future of Education
We need not over emphasise the obvious need of investment into primary and secondary school infrastructure. More danger lies in the proliferation of private schools, colleges, universities whose facilities, curriculum, and teacher qualifications may be, comparatively, below the standards set by the government and expected by the paying public. Since the brightness of the future of our country is dependent on the quality and quantity of economists, scientists, lawyers, doctors, teachers etc., fine tuning our education system is necessary to align it with the socio-economic and political visioning and expectations of our country.
To guide the alignment, the question we need to ask ourselves is what is the purpose of our education system? If the purpose is to educate all Zambians and leave no child behind, at least up
to secondary school, as the case is in the United States of America, then we must remove all the examinations that prevent students from progressing all the way to the 12th grade.
But if the purpose is to educate only those that can pass exams, and leave everybody else behind, as the current policy is, then we probably need to make the exams more stringent so that only top students go through our education system.
But there is really no national advantage in leaving behind a large portion of young boys and girls just because, for many reasons, they couldn’t pass the Grade 7 exam.
Referencing the theory of multiple intelligences, these students who fail at Grade 7
or Grade 9 are intelligent in other aspects and the nation through the education system must seek to harness those intelligences so that they too can contribute to achieving a brighter future
of our country.
We may also need to de-emphasise university education and instead advise those who cannot be accepted into universities that alternative education is just as important.
For example, Zambia has a shortage of trained and well qualified artisans. An individual can equally make a good living as an electrician, a bricklayer, a baker, a tailor, a pest control specialist, a mortuary and graveyard entrepreneur, a carpenter, a welder and so many more.
The future of Zambia will depend on all professions and educational backgrounds, not just on university graduates.
The Future Society
The Zambian society, like
all societies, has been and continues to be dynamic in alignment with mostly western ideology and culture while traditional and cultural aspects of the society have been diminishing due to
weakening attachment.
As the society shifts towards westernisation, the bonds of care for each other will continue to weaken. Many people, especially the orphaned, the disabled, the widowed who depended on their dead spouses, the old, and generally the poor, risk being left behind during this transition to a society that emphasises individuality and values success and rewards based on individual effort.
As the population grows these groups of disadvantaged Zambians will also grow in size and will lead to increased disparities between say, the rich and the poor or the haves versus the have-nots.
Many disadvantaged Zambians will be left behind unless the government and society ensures support systems to bring them along and make their lives meaningful and worthy.
Forward looking health, economic, and social systems focused on supporting this group of Zambians will include pension systems that are designed to pay out the contributing retirees so they don’t fall into poverty, homelessness and eventually depression and become a health cost to the nation.
Zambia will also need to enact laws that ensures that these groups of Zambians have equal access to employment, healthcare, education, housing, and even buildings.
It is acknowledged that today these laws that address one or two of these aspects may be in existence in some form. But these laws will need to be expanded in detail, scope, domain, and enforcement to give comfort to these Zambians that they will be taken care of in their time of need.