“AND so my fellow Americans: Ask not what the country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
This is yet another famous quote by former United States (US) president John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) whose legacy includes the founding of the US Peace Corps, an organisation under which young American volunteers are sent to some of the remotest parts of the world to help the poor – or what Frantz Fanon calls the Wretched of the Earth – upgrade their living standards.
Indeed fellow Zambians, what are you doing to help your country develop?
What will be your legacy when you retire? Will former colleagues or neighbours remember you as one of those civil servants or council administrators who amassed their fortunes through unretired imprest?
Sociologists call it ‘white-collar crime’ – and its perpetrators are aware that what they are doing is tantamount to defrauding fellow citizens, rates and taxpayers.
This is what must be worrying everyone because money from Government treasury meant to develop or repair the infrastructure is going into the pockets of a few selfish officials, as highlighted in the Auditor-General’s Report and Parliamentary Accounts Committee tours of the districts.
Some three years ago – just before the Patriotic Front (PF) came to power – I drove from Gaborone, the Botswana capital, to my home town, Mufulira, before proceeding to Petauke and Chipata in the Eastern Province.
What I found in Mufulira would have made Sir Roy Welensky, the former federal prime minister of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, turn in his grave at the degree of devastation done to most of the good infrastructure the colonialists left, due to lack of maintenance.
Most if not all the once nicely paved avenues in the former exclusive Whites’ residential areas, stretching from the Mufulira Copper Mine plant near Ronald Ross Hospital right up to the Mufulira Country Club on the Ndola road – had been reduced to gravel roads with huge potholes.
I drove up from Dongwe Street to what used to be known as Herbert Young Avenue, which was renamed as ‘Hombwe Avenue’ after Zambia won her independence from Britain in October 1964.
For sentimental reasons, I particularly wanted to see House No. H128 on this once nice tarred road because my older brother did some piece-jobs there as a houseboy during school holidays in 1958.
I won’t say much about what greeted me. But the truth of the matter is that the former green lawns were no more not to mention flowers and trimmed hedges.
That was apparently the general pattern everywhere in the country. Towns like Chingola and Luanshya, which were once-upon-a-time the epitome of the Copperbelt’s fastest growing garden-cities, had lost their status.
From there, I drove to Kantanshi Mine Township using the western by-pass near the Mine Smelter.
I wanted to check on the conditions of Shinde Stadium, the home of former legendary cup fighters and National Football League (NFL) champions Mufulira Wanderers.
The road from the Mine Police Club (Bakapokola) that runs between the stadium and Section Eight was riddled with potholes, while the stadium itself looked desolate, a relic of the past.
The situation was (and still is) even worse in the rest of the mine townships, as internal roads had/have become impassable due to soil erosion and neglect by sitting tenants who bought former mine and council properties.
I then drove to Kamuchanga, which falls under the Mufulira Municipal Council.
The John Kachofa Stadium, home ground of the once famous and powerful Mufulira Blackpool FC that used to pull crowds, was (and still is) in a terrible state of disrepair.
The roof of the grandstand was/is in a sorry state. The whole place is an eyesore. The roads in the township have developed into running streams.
At some point in Kamuchanga Township near the Olympic Milling plant, I had to park the vehicle and walk the rest of the distance to our parents’ home because the roads had developed huge craters that resemble swimming pools when it rains.
What are councillors and local members of Parliament (MPs) doing?
I asked myself because frankly, there is nothing to bear favourable testimony for them. Some people are certainly reaping where they did not sow, I said to myself.
However, the infrastructure in the whole country has collapsed so  much that nowadays there is little or no difference at all between urban and rural areas.
But gladly, the picture is gradually changing, thanks to the Patriotic Front (PF) Government of President Michael Sata which has put the construction and rehabilitation of the infrastructure on top of its agenda.
There is development everywhere in Zambia because the PF administration seems determined to leave no stone unturned to develop the country and improve the living standards of its people.
This is laudable because what the PF is doing is what is expected of a “government by the people, for the people and of the people”.
“The legitimate object of government,” says former US president Abraham Lincoln, “is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.”
It’s against this backdrop, I would like to believe, that Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda thrashed out his 2013/2014 Budget that he presented to Parliament late last year, laying special emphasis on building fresh infrastructure and rehabilitating old ones across Zambia.
While the Government is doing so much, I believe it behooves every Zambian to play his/her part, especially when it comes to the maintenance and repair of internal roads in various suburbs and townships.
Roads in newly developed areas like New Ndeke in Kitwe, Kansenshi Overspill in Ndola, and many others throughout the country, do not have proper road networks so much that whenever it rains it becomes virtually impossible to access such areas.
Given Zambia’s rapid urbanisation, central government and municipal councils may not in the short-term come to the rescue, paving and tarring such roads because of limited financial resources.
So residents should take the initiative by working cooperatively at improving facilities, including streetlights which are indispensable to the fight against the crime wave.
For example, residents on both sides of Petauke Road in Ndola’s Kansenshi suburb can each offer to repair the section of the highway that runs in front of their houses and then approach – elected councillors and parliamentarians – Government and local authorities for help with equipment like compactors, and graders, etc.
With this approach, I strongly believe that local companies and foreign donors will feel motivated to come in and fund the finishing touches.
But Zambians must set the ball rolling.
So instead of always trying to perfect ways to make a quick buck, employing dirty tactics like unretired imprests, let us all join the “national reconstruction army” and help Government rehabilitate damaged facilities and preserve them for future generations.
But for this to happen, citizens must be empowered economically.
It means Government should not be seen to be paying mere lip-service to economic diversification and citizen economic-empowerment (CEE).
Citizens who are helping Government fight rampant unemployment in the country by creating jobs for others must surely be on top of the list of those who must receive direct state-funding.
Why?
Private primary schools, secondary schools and universities are all complementing Government effort.
But how much support are they getting from the Ministry of Education in terms of funding?
Nothing, yet they are helping ease the pressure on Government coffers and facilities.
Every serious person would not question but agree that though privately-owned, these schools and colleges are doing remarkable work, decongesting state-run schools and colleges that are bursting at the seams and offering low quality education to our children.
So, Zambians who have chosen “to do something for their country” – doing what is essentially a Government responsibility (offering education and health) – deserve a better deal because they have created jobs.
For it is true Government can’t employ everyone because that does not happen even in more developed economies.
Private-owned institutions are by law required to pay salaries, tax to the Zambia Revenue Authority and make employee statutory Workers’ Compensation contributions.
But they are struggling because Government schools are taking every learner, leading to not only crowding but also to compounding the teacher-student ratios and lowering standards.
Government cannot afford to ignore this new source of extra revenue that it needs in its concerted drive to build and rehabilitate the infrastructure across the country.
So what can you do for your country?
Certainly not to may hay while the sun shines.
Comments: silapress@yahoo.com