‘Only Zambians can develop Zambia’
ZAMBIANS must get involved in the running of their economy if they are to create a better country and see its way out of poverty, the young Zambian entrepreneur Chilekwa Mambwe has said.
Mr Mambwe said no matter how much goodwill and investment Zambia attract from foreign partners, the country can never develop without the involvement of its citizens, especially the young ones.
“Leaving our economy in the hands of foreigners is like having a wife and asking your neighbour to love her on your behalf,” he said.
The Daily Nation caught up with the young Zambian entrepreneur Chilekwa Mambwe and below is the question and answer interview with him:
Daily Nation: Tell us about yourself, who is Chilekwa Mambwe?
Mambwe: Well, Chilekwa Mambwe is a people centered entrepreneur who is the Chairman General of the Zambia’s fastest growing Cooperative Society and Brand Ambassador for Genuine Millionaires Movement a Joint venture between Kalumbila Multipurpose Cooperative Society Ltd and Victor Series Production.
Daily Nation: You are one of the Zambian young people we have seen singing about “economic independence,” Why economic independence?
Mambwe: To begin with I was born in the late 70s and I grew up believing that as Africans we are inferior. What do I mean? I used to go to school with Indians and Whites and I could tell the difference in the way we were living. There was a huge gap in the social status between us Africans and the other races. I grew up believing that as Africans we belonged to a class of people who could not be better than the Indians and Whites and thought it was a privilege to associate with them.
I used to think that every good thing in our nation belonged to them and yet all the natural resources in this country actually belong to us except our forefathers were given an education system by the Colonial Masters that made them believe that they could only work and get a salary, an education system that did not allow them to think outside the box and use innovation and creativity to maximise their revenue using our God given natural resources.
All our parents thought of was becoming rich after getting their retirement package which made it hard in that by the time they were retiring, they had no enough energy to think innovation and run around because of age.
To sum it up, I have come to realize that the words of the late Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe have become a fulfilled prophesy and I quote “We must be careful with these Colonial masters, because they may come back as investors”.
Am forced to believe that before Zambia and other African nations were released to us these people planned on how they could still enslave us. This is the more reason why I personally
don’t believe in the education system they gave us. It has made us poor and dependant on them. The education system they gave us has made us depend on the government giving us employment and it has taken Innovation and Creativity away from us. And because we do not think outside the Box, we have become our own enemies and have insulted each and every government that has come into power. As citizens, we must see beyond the Political Independence we attained in 1964 or else we shall continue to be each enemies.
Unfortunately, as youth of today we are also living like our fathers who
believed in being employed by the Government and wait for a pension to become businessmen and women while foreigners continue to make use of our water, land and natural resources to better their lives.
If we continued living like this, we risk having no Zambia for the generation that shall be there 50 years from. Right now, the government is the largest employer and this is very dangerous in that, having a nation where most of the businesses are being run by foreigners and money is being extenerlised, there is no way you can have a strong currency.
Recently His Excellecy President Edgar Chagwa Lungu launched the Economic Recovery Plan which on Pillar Five stated that to improve forex, we need to work on the Export Base and that is the way to go however, to do that we need a lot of Zambians to wake up and begin to run businesses that we make our Kwacha stay in our country.
Daily Nation: When you say there is a problem when we let foreigners run all the businesses in our nation, what do you mean exactly?
Chilekwa: There is actually a very big problem in that our Kwacha would become weaker and weaker. Let me give you a very simple example. We have got a lot of Filling Stations all over the nation reason being that, Zambians in all corners of the nation are driving. What this means is that every Zambian who drives buys fuel from these filling Stations most of which are owned by foreign nationals. Let me talk of commuters. These get on buses everyday which makes Bus Drivers buy fuel on a daily basis. Are
you seeing the picture? This means that every Zambian who gets on a bus contributes money that goes towards this energy industry which is mostly in the hands of foreigners. Imagine how much money is being externerlised from this industry alone.
Let me also talk about the Industries such as clothing Industry, Food Industry, Transport Industry, Mining Industry, Health Industry and others, imagine most of these are in the hands of foreign nationals. Are you seeing the disaster on the Kwacha?
Zambia’s economy has to be liberated and this shall take the Youth of today realise that for a long time, we have lived a lie by thinking that it is the responsibility of Government alone to employ us. This mentality would make us citizens hate each and every government that would come into power.
Daily Nation: Talking of natural resources, what is it that you can mention which Zambians can take advantage of?
Chilekwa: We are home to more than 58 million hectares of land which is arable and we have 40% of water bodies in Central and Southern Africa belonging to Zambia. Talking of the water we have, it is only foreign nationals who have taken advantage it and are doing fish cages on our lakes, and us can only do subsistence farming and whenever you see a Commercial farm just know that one out of 100 it belongs to a foreigner. Even there, how do you expect the Kwacha to appreciate against major foreign currencies.
Daily Nation: What are you doing to get Zambians work together to exploit our Natural Resources?
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We founded an Initiative for Zambian citizens called “The Genuine Millionaires Movement”. This initiative has attracted Zambian citizens from all corners of our nation who have agreed to put Resources together that shall enable us run businesses which shall in turn make us create employment for our many unemployed Youth and Women. This shall also supplement Government efforts in that, unemployment shall be a thing of the past.
Chilekwa: We founded an Initiative for Zambian citizens called “The Genuine Millionaires Movement”. This initiative has attracted Zambian citizens from all corners of our nation who have agreed to put Resources together that shall enable us run businesses which shall in turn make us create employment for our many unemployed Youth and Women. This shall also supplement Government efforts in that, unemployment shall be a thing of the past. The other thing is that our Economic activities shall be paying enough Taxes to the government and this shall make the government of the day less dependent on Foreign
Aid and the Produce from the various enterprises shall greatly improve our GDP leading to the strengthening of the Kwacha against Major Foreign Currencies. As Genuine Millionaires Movement, our Goal is to make 10,000(Ten thousand) Millionaires by the year 2025. When we have a lot of wealthy citizens, Zambia shall develop.
Daily Nation: In conclusion, who is supposed to be part of this battle?
Mambwe: Everyone and that includes our political leaders, Civil Servants, Youth, Women and Men. Politicians should encourage us the citizens to get involved in owning the economy in our hands if we are to create a better Zambia. This will in turn create a good political landscape that would even abort Political Violence during the time of elections. Today, we continue to see political violence reason being that, the youth who are the majority in our population keep believing that our economy can be bettered by us casting a vote on the polling day.
We must get involved in running our economy and this shall only be achieved when we let every youth know that most of the foreign nationals who run businesses in our nation run them as cooperatives. Talk of the Chinese, the Indians, the South Africans who brought Shoprite,
Spar and many other businesses.
All these people put money in a
Pull Fund and look for opportunities and unfortunately, we only look for employment from them.
Leaving our Economy in the Hands of Foreigners is like having a wife and asking your neighbour to love on your behalf. Zambia and Africa must wake.
Above all, with or without foreign help, the responsibility to develop this country lies squarely on every citizen, especially the younger generation.