Happenings under UPND and specifically the behavior of Minister of Finance Situmbeko Musokotwane require critical interrogation by political observers. In order to do this, political observers need two important elements. The first is that the political observer must not be too stupid. And the second, which somehow relates to the first, is that the political observer must not be too full of himself or herself. When these two requirements are fulfilled, then a political observer is likely to see that what is going on in the UPND government and specifically the behavior of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Musokotwane, goes to the heart and pride of this country. What we have is a leadership which has lost hope in themselves and in what they can deliver for this country. There are several troubling elements that make this so obvious.
On 30th August 2021, Dr. Musokotwane was quoted by Al Jazeera saying, “IMF loan ‘important’ to its finances,” and that Situmbeko Musokotwane faced the daunting task of pulling the country out of a protracted debt crisis, prioritizing IMF talks. In his reported words: “We don’t have the money to pay back. This is why it is important that we get on (an) IMF (programme) so that we can rearrange not to pay next year. I am 100 percent confident that it will be done,” he said. Later, the finance minister, Situmbeko Musokotwane, “expressed his gratitude to President Hakainde Hichilema for providing steadfast leadership, which led to the country achieving a debt restructuring deal.” To Dr. Musokotwane, President Hichilema has set “clear performance benchmarks for the economic management team.” In all this, the finance minister expressed opinions that “people are unnecessarily harsh on the performance of the UPND Government….the exchange rate would have been $1 to K40 if PF was still in government.”
This is not only careless but also an inability to take full responsibility for what is going on in Zambia. Rather than waste energies discussing the previous government, Musokotwane should explain clearly how he is going to drive an agenda of resource mobilization and economic transformation. Global trotting, reporting which actor in the global north this time dashed out which amount isn’t good enough and national political actors including Dr. Musokotwane himself should find ways to stop embarrassing Zambia with their externally and internationally facing solution propositions.
Reading this, one wonders whether this is leadership we can trust to find solutions to development challenges facing Zambia. Whose ideas are ruling? Does the UPND really have a nationally focused agenda – if yes, what is it? Who inputs in this agenda? A domestically facing resource mobilization agenda is seriously missing in Zambia. Zambians remain divided on what the finance minister has done and promises to do. An externally facing economy is not Musokotwane’s fault per se, but he should bear some responsibility for his path-dependent approach. Thus, none of this is to say Situmbeko is alone; neither is he particularly admirable given that he has been on this job for a good part of his life.
It is also to say that natural resource-rich countries like Zambia should probably go back to what can be called as original values that can underpin society – of patriotism. This requires a reorganization of political systems and wiring them in such a way as to prioritize locally driven visions of resource mobilization and assumptions of wellbeing. This should not be taken to mean a call for isolationism. Rather, it should be taken to mean that there is no one country out there that can drive Zambia’s interests better than Zambians themselves. History has taught us that way.
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