DEAREST LAURA MITI, I HEAR YOU – BUT LET ME EXPLAIN WHY PETROLEUM, HOUSING, INDUSTRY AND CULTURE ARE NOT JOKES
By Your “God-given” Sunday Chanda
Laura’s reaction – “These Portfolios sound like they were proposed where alcohol was flowing” – made me laugh . Then it made me think. Because when you first hear Ministry of Petroleum and we have not found oil, or Ministry of Housing separate from Infrastructure, or Culture standing alone, it does sound perplexing. It’s even more perplexing when one tries to interrogate the alignment away from the Grow Zambia Agenda Concept.
Let me explain, citizen to citizen, why these are not jobs for friends. They are jobs that must be done if we want to Grow Zambia
1. MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM – “We have found oil?”
No, we have not found oil. We have found something more expensive than oil: We spend over $2 billion every year importing fuel.
Every farmer in Mkushi waiting for diesel for a tractor, every truck moving copper from Solwezi to Dar es Salaam, every bus from Lusaka to Livingstone, every generator during load shedding – all petroleum.
Look at Appendix II of the Motion: Ministry of Petroleum owns Oil and Gas Pipelines, Refineries, Petroleum Storage and Pricing, Indeni, TAZAMA Pipeline, TAZAMA Petroleum Products.
This Ministry’s job is not to find oil. Its job is to make sure fuel is available, affordable, and stored. For 10 million tonnes of maize, you need 40 million litres of diesel. For 3 million tonnes of copper, you need fuel for mines and trucks.
If we leave petroleum inside Electricity, we will have a Minister worrying about ZESCO and forgetting TAZAMA. Splitting is how Kenya, Ethiopia and UAE secured fuel. It is a fuel security Ministry, not an oil discovery Ministry.
2. TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRY – “What will they be doing all day?”
This is the most important question.
Ministry of Technology and Science – will not be fixing computers. Its job is Smart Agriculture, Smart Grid for 10,000 MW, Mines Technology for exploration. Without technology, we cannot grow soy from 300,000 tonnes to 3 million tonnes.
Ministry of Industry – This is NOT the old Commerce that was giving trading licenses in Kamwala. Read its subjects: Industrialisation Policy, Special Economic Zones, Zambia Development Agency, Zambia Bureau of Standards.
Its full day work is this: Make sure 3 million tonnes of copper becomes copper cable and wire in Ndola, not raw copper exported to Switzerland. Make sure 3 million tonnes of soy becomes cooking oil in Eastern, not raw beans exported. Make sure 1 million tonnes of sugar becomes industrial sugar and ethanol. That is industrialization. That is wealth and jobs. If this Ministry does not work full day, 3 million tonnes copper will remain poverty.
3. HOUSING – “Did Housing say it’s not infrastructure?”
Housing IS infrastructure, but infrastructure in Zambia has meant roads and bridges. Meanwhile we have a 2 million plus housing deficit. Lusaka alone needs over 60,000 houses per year.
When you want 5 million tourists, where will they sleep? In lodges, hotels, serviced apartments. That is housing. When you want to move civil servants and teachers to Mkushi farm block to grow wheat, where will they live? Housing.
In the Motion to be presented by the Vice President, Ministry of Infrastructure and Urban Development owns Architecture, Roads, Public Infrastructure, Road Development Agency, Kazungula Bridge.
Ministry of Housing owns Housing Policy, Housing Finance, National Housing Authority.
One builds the road, the other builds houses along the road. Separating allows Housing to focus on Housing Finance – mortgages, partnerships with NAPSA, private developers. This is best practice from Rwanda and South Africa.
4. TRADE AND EXPORTS – “What does Trade and Exports mean? Trade is local?”
Good question Laura. In the old Ministry, Trade meant local trading licenses – shops in Kamwala, trading licenses. That is commerce.
Trade and Exports in new Motion means: Export Promotion, E-Commerce, Business Registration, Competition and Consumer Protection.
For first time, Zambia says: Our job is not just to allow Zambians to trade in Lusaka. Our job is to sell Zambian beef to Saudi Arabia, maize to Congo, sugar to EU. That $1 billion beef export target needs a Ministry whose KPI is dollars earned, not licenses issued.
Trade is domestic. Exports is foreign. We need both. That is why Ghana created Gold Board, Rwanda created its Export Growth Facility
5. TRANSPORT AND LOGISTICS – “Ati bikenipo na Transport and Logistics”
Transport is the bus, the truck, the plane. Logistics is what makes the bus profitable – the cold chain that keeps beef fresh from Mongu to Lusaka, the warehousing for maize, the tracking for copper.
If we only have Transport, we move people. If we add Logistics, we move value. For $1bn beef, you need logistics – abattoirs, cold trucks, export certification. For 10m maize, you need storage logistics. So the name change is not just English but money.
6. CULTURE INKALE YEKA – “Awee, kuli culture inkanikoni na Arts, itikameko”
Maawe, I heard this one loud.
Culture alone sounds small until you ask: Why does a tourist pay $5,000 to come to Zambia? Not just for a lion. For Kuomboka, for Nc’wala, for Likumbi Lya Mize, for our music, for our art. Culture IS a tourism product.
In Motion to be presented by the Vice President, Ministry of Culture and Arts owns Arts Centres, Film Policy, Creative Arts Industries, Folklore and Preservation of Oral Traditions.
Ministry of Youth and Sports owns Stadia, Youth Entrepreneurship, Sports Policy.
They have been split because mixing culture with football killed both. Artists complained Youth and Sport only funded football. Now Culture and Arts has its own budget for creative industry – film, music, arts – which feeds 5 million tourists. South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya all have standalone Culture.
SO, WAS THIS PROPOSED AFTER ALCOHOL?
No. It was proposed after realising that you cannot grow 10,000 MW, 10m maize, 3m copper, 5m tourists and $1bn beef with Ministries designed to manage debt.
Will 30 Ministries cost more? Parliament must ask that question tomorrow on Tuesday. I agree. We must demand cost rationalization plan.
But are the portfolios jokes? No. Each has a full day work if we want to produce, not just to administer.
My appeal is “Don’t judge by names. Judge by the first 90 days”.
(a) Does Ministry of Petroleum reduce fuel shortages?
(b) Does Ministry of Industry gazette agro-industrial zones in Mkushi, Choma, Ndola?
(c) Does Ministry of Trade and Exports abolish export permits?
(d) Does Ministry of Housing start housing finance?
(e) Does Ministry of Culture fund Kuomboka and film?
If they do, then Grow Zambia is real. If they don’t, then your reaction was right.
For now, let us allow Parliament to debate on Tuesday with sobriety, not alcohol.
Kozo!
Goodnight Laura!
SCC.
By Sunday Chanda