Africa-Press – Zambia. MOVEMENT for National Renewal leader John Sangwa says citizens must realise that there is no saviour that is coming to save Zambia because the turning around of the country is a responsibility of every citizen.
Sangwa says it is not possible for government to fix all of the country’s problems, arguing that citizens must acknowledge that the country is in a bad place and make a collective decision to improve the situation.
Speaking when he featured on Crown TV, Wednesday, Sangwa said his movement’s main message to citizens is that the transformation of the country cannot be left to those in government alone.
“The starting point is this; since independence, we have been made to believe that citizens should just sit there and government will fix everything. The truth of the matter is, that is not possible and that has not worked. What we are saying as the Movement for National Renewal is that, the turning around of this country is a collective responsibility; it is not the responsibility of a single leader.
What is required [is] that each and every Zambian must be able to step forward, we must first of all, as Zambians, make a collective decision to acknowledge where we are, that this is not a good place we are in, we shouldn’t be where we are and then make a collective decision to say, ‘we deserve better, we should be in a better place,’” Sangwa noted.
“It requires us to be able to join hands. It’s not a job of the leadership alone, it is the job of those elected as well as the citizens themselves, holding hands, to choose to transform this country. That is the primary message that we are saying.
Citizens must come to this realisation that there is no saviour that will come to save Zambia, and there is no president or leader that can save Zambia [but] that we, together, with those elected and ourselves as citizens, we are the solution to our problems. It’s not about whether you have a particular economic policy or not, that is the starting point, to accept first of all. Zambia’s problem is not about policies, it is invariably our failure or political will to implement those policies”.
Sangwa stressed that there has been a decline in the quality of life since 2021, adding that the country’s challenges are much greater now compared to four years ago.
“If you look at one of the issues that we are talking about in the National Renewal is to ask Zambians first of all, to acknowledge the extent and the depth of the challenges that the country faces. The moment we acknowledge that, then the next question that we should be talking about is what do we do about those challenges?
But when we keep telling ourselves lies that things are okay, and in any case you don’t even need to tell an average Zambian as to how he feels, they know the reality as to what they are going through. In fact, if you ask any average Zambian to say, how is your life today compared to 2021, I don’t think people will say there’s been [an] improvement. In fact, there’s been a decline in the quality of life and many other factors. The challenges are far much greater than they were,” said Sangwa.
“But of course, this is not attributable to a single government, all the governments that we have had since 1964, they have largely contributed to the situation where we are and that is why we are saying that it is time for us to pause and reflect and call for the renewal of the country. The problem is, the population has grown but the economy has not kept up with that population growth. Our population has grown faster than our economy.
At independence, our GDP was roughly a billion dollars. That one billion dollars in today’s terms would be equivalent to $10 billion but what was last year’s GDP? It was $25 billion.
Basically, you are saying, from independence to date, you have only added on something like $15 billion, which would be roughly about one and a half or two and a half times but during the same time, the population has grown seven times. The economy is not growing as it should”.
Sangwa urged political leaders who were promising voters what they would do for them once elected to ensure that they created wealth first because the country was broke.
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