The good and ugly sides of Sata's two years in the saddle
Arthur Simuchoba | Friday October 11, 2013 14:44
The party is almost half way through its first term of office as the next scheduled elections are in 2016. Assessments of the PF record in office are mixed. While the PF leadership believes that it is on course, the assessment of the opposition and other independent observers tends to be that Zambia has veered rather dangerously off-course under the stewardship of the PF.
On this occasion voices from the PF were upbeat on the basis that the party was on course in all the four core areas of its manifesto namely education, health, agriculture and local government and expressed the optimism that more would be achieved in the next three years.
But there was also an admission that the two years in office haven't been easy.
'I think some of us were too optimistic, too new to government and we thought it was easy. We have discovered that it is more difficult. Now, we are even more careful because we realise where the difficulties are,' said Vice-President Guy Scott.
'We have to be even more serious than we have been... the next three years will be more productive than the last two years. We are focused,' he said. _One of the architects of the PF manifesto, Deputy Justice Minister Robert Simbyakula was equally ebullient.
He said education policy reforms centred on infrastructure development, procurement as well as distribution of school materials, increasing enrollment and deploying more teachers were well underway. So far, more than 19, 700 more teachers had been recruited.
Trade training institutes were being rehabilitated and new ones planned. _'We are constructing new trades training institutes so that the youth are imparted with skills,' he said._There was increased budget allocation for drugs, other medical supplies and for health infrastructure under the PF. District hospitals were being upgraded and modernised and up to US$ 50 million would be spent on the construction of 650 health posts across the country, he said.
Crop diversification was being promoted and decentralisation of local government was proceeding apace.
The anniversary came shortly after President Michael Sata had chided his ministers for not talking about the PF attainments over the two years.
'Why have you not been talking? Why are you so quiet...? You are being pounded left, right and centre... you are not replying! Whom do you think is going to reply for you?' he asked during a swearing in ceremony September 16. _'Can we start talking now! Start telling the people what you have done,' he ordered.
His reference to being 'pounded left, right and centre' was not entirely misplaced. There has been some of that and mainly from the main opposition parties and some NGOs who are quite pessimistic and critical of the direction they see the country taking under Sata's government and the next three years promise to be even more fraught.
The main opposition parties - the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) and the United Party for National Development(UPND) - don't always see eye to eye but they are agreed that the political atmosphere has become extremely repressive. They can barely operate because of a pattern of obstruction and the PF strategy of enticing opposition MPs to cross the floor to the government benches leading to numerous and costly by-elections.
They further insist that the rule of law has suffered with government disregarding lawful court orders, for instance. The PF is cast as a violent party whose activists are a menace to those with divergent views. It is running a bloated administration with a surfeit of deputy ministers with no clear job description.
Last year together with some NGOs the opposition unveiled a dossier of increased human rights violations by the government which they used as a basis to request the suspension of Zambia's membership of the Commonwealth until she adhered to set standards. So far nothing of the sort has happened.
Still, the critical voices remain and there are contentious issues ahead not least the mode of adoption of the new constitution. The opposition and the NGOs insist that it should be by national referendum. But that costs money on the scale of a general election and the PF has not been too forthcoming so far as to how it will be done. Critics of the government are clearly waiting in the wings over the issue and as the draft nears completion , the day of reckoning can't be far.
What seems therefore is that if the past two years have been hard, the next three years could even be tougher for an administration that has acquired a certain reputation for trying to cut corners.
(Sila Press Agency)