Africa-Press – Zambia. It is both tragic and morally indefensible that Mr Hakainde Hichilema’s government can publicly boast about holding a mere USD 5 billion in foreign reserves while thousands of Zambian farmers remain unpaid for maize they supplied to the state. This is not economic prudence. It is cruelty disguised as fiscal discipline.
A government that takes maize from farmers, sells part of it, benefits from the proceeds, and then withholds payment is not managing an economy. It is exploiting its own citizens. Who does that to the very people who feed the nation? What moral justification exists for celebrating reserves while farmers cannot pay for their farming inputs, service loans, or even prepare adequately for the next farming season?
Let us be clear. The money sitting in those so-called reserves does not belong to Mr Hichilema or the UPND government. It belongs to Zambian farmers. It is the sweat of rural households, the dignity of men and women who trusted the state in good faith. Any reserve built on unpaid obligations is not a reserve. It is stolen time, stolen labour, and stolen hope.
The consequences of this insensitivity will not be abstract. They will be real and devastating. Farmers who are not paid today will not plant tomorrow. Reduced planting this season means food shortages next year and the year after. It means higher mealie meal prices. It means hunger. It means instability. No amount of praise from Western embassies or international financial institutions will fill empty granaries.
Mr Hichilema appears more eager to impress the West than to protect the livelihoods of his own people. This obsession with external approval has produced a dangerous policy mindset where pleasing creditors and donors take precedence over paying farmers and safeguarding food security. The Zambia government does not exist to validate foreign economic theories. It exists to serve Zambians.
A government that claims to be pro-poor cannot build its macroeconomic narrative on the suffering of small-scale farmers. You cannot preach discipline to a farmer who has delivered maize, waited months without payment, and watched interest on loans accumulate. You cannot lecture a rural household about patience when children are sleeping hungry.
Mr Hichilema must urgently realign his priorities. Paying farmers is not charity. It is a contractual and moral obligation. It is also a strategic necessity for national food security. If the UPND government truly believes in economic justice, then it must immediately retrieve and redirect those funds to clear arrears owed to farmers.
Zambia will not be developed by press statements about reserves. It will be developed by honouring commitments, protecting producers, and placing the poor at the centre of economic policy. Anything less is betrayal.
History will not remember how loudly the UPND government boasted about reserves. It will remember whether farmers were paid, whether fields were planted, and whether children had food on the table. On that score, the current trajectory is alarming and unacceptable.
Fred M’membe
Socialist Party president and People’s Pact presidential candidate
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