Goodwell Mateyo

@Ninza84

Purveyor of pain and suffering and perennial pilgrim for love.

Kitwe, Zambia

Joined December 2011

623 Following

309 Followers

2.1K Posts

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@Anarchy_Me_

3 days ago

SAKWIBA SIKOTA WRITES.... JITO GETS THE JITTERBUGS! Special Assistant to the President for Finance and Investment Jito Kayumba has caught something. BM8 has thrown a grenade onto the UPND drum roll of the US$6.5 billion reserves. Jito puts across a solid macro 101 argument that the foreign dollar reserves help create macroeconomic stability. He argued that inflation, exchange rate stability and foreign exchange reserves were not abstract concepts but factors that directly influenced the cost of living and the country’s economic resilience. This is, however, only half the story, and Jito has left out the fact that we should not have an abstract argument but that there are real-life ‘Jelita’s and Mulenga’s’ who are not feeling any change right now to the very difficult fight for survival in their present situation. Jito’s argument sounds good in a lecture theatre, but certainly does not sound so good in a rumbling empty stomach. The slogan “You can’t eat macroeconomic stability” hits a nerve for a reason. People have told Jito, “Even if you add ‘salt sana’ to it, you can’t eat macroeconomic stability.” It will only become drier. Macro stability is necessary, but not sufficient. You can have low inflation and stable kwacha, but if jobs are scarce, wages are stagnant, and high power tariffs kill businesses, citizens still feel broke. The chain, which Jito claims, that stable forex leads to business confidence, attracting investment which creates jobs and higher wages, can take years. A mother buying mealie meal or salt tomorrow doesn’t feel that chain. So what BM8 is really saying on the campaign trail is that “Stability alone doesn’t put food on the table today.” What Jito conveniently leaves out about his graphs and charts is that Macro numbers are averages. They hide inequality. Inflation at 6% is “stable”, but if food inflation is 15% while luxury goods like cars and mining machinery drop to 2%, poor households get crushed while the statistics look good. It’s the same with forex reserves; they are good for the country, but if most imports are for mines/luxury goods and not fertiliser, medicine, MRI and CT scan machines, the “buffer” doesn’t help ordinary people directly. It is also true to say, “Micro issues often hurt more than macro issues” Load shedding and high energy power rates, corruption at the market level, high transport costs, lack of access to credit, and poor roads all can raise prices by more than 2% extra inflation. A farmer with stable forex still can’t sell crops if there’s no road to market. A trader still can’t plan if ZESCO power rates are prohibitively high, regardless of currency stability. Critics argue government focuses on macro to look good internationally, while ignoring micro fixes that citizens feel daily. Austerity for stability can worsen livelihoods short-term because to get macro stability, governments often cut subsidies, raise taxes, or limit spending. That does improve long-term resilience, but it means higher fuel/mealie meal prices now. So when leaders say “trust the macro fundamentals”, citizens hear “suffer now for a payoff later”. The slogan is pushback against that trade-off. People ask: “Stable for whom, and when?” We have seen Jito’s change of lifestyle and dressing since his job at State House. This is the same for many of his colleagues and even party officials. So to answer the question “Stable for who, and when?”, the answer may be, “for them now; but for you maybe sometime in the future”. Jito says, “Zambians are capable of understanding”. True. But years of politicians using macro jargon while living standards fall make people cynical. Especially when they see the broken promises that were made before the 2021 elections by Shi Promise. BM8 saying “You can’t eat macro stability” is less about economics, but more about accountability. It means: “Don’t just give us charts. Show us cheaper food, jobs, working clinics.” If macro stability isn’t translating to lived experience, citizens will dismiss it as elite talk. All those beautiful pie charts Jito and his boss display cannot take the place of a plain old meat pie or even a rock-bun. The hungry man will pick the meat pie over the pie chart every day of the year. Forex reserves protect the country from shocks, but they don’t automatically protect households. If 80% of people work in the informal sector with no savings, no insurance, no safety nets, then a national “buffer” doesn’t buffer them. They still face shocks one meal at a time. So critics argue: build household resilience, not just national reserves. BM8 is right that “foundation” is needed, but that you still need jobs, productivity, fair markets, and social protection on top. BM8 is not underestimating Zambians. BM8 says you can’t eat stability alone, but that you need stability and his specific policies that will lower your cost of living in 6-12 months. These policies set out in the manifesto touch on energy, agricultural, mining, manufacturing, tourism, greenfield investments and much more Some people and cults worship the accumulation of wealth and see it as a measure of their ‘worth”. The evil that drives some cults, like the Freemasons, is money. Money isn’t evil, but greed and lack of compassion is. Treating living human beings as mere statistics or numbers is not in line with Christian values. BM8 is simply saying people matter more than profit. You should not boast about forex reserves when you have -No reliable working MRI and CT Scan machines even in the country’s three top hospitals in the capital city. -Neglected the housing and sanitation situation at our institutions of learning to the extent that a university student tragically dies falling into the sewers through a broken manhole cover. -Many school children learning in overcrowded classes of more than a hundred students each. -Constant shortages of medicine in our medical facilities. -An unprecedented hunger situation amongst the citizens. -Massive crime rate. -High unemployment. -Low life expectancy. BM8 is saying some of these reserves should be used to fix most of the above problems. BM saying this seems to have resonated very well with the general public. It relates because it truly reflects the hard situation the majority of Zambians find themselves in. Jito and his boss have noticed this and seen the multitudes at BM8’s rallies listening attentively to a clear message they agree with and understand. It is sinking in. What worries Jito and his boss even more is that the message is delivered so clearly that the masses are able to pass it on to others who may not have been at the rallies. Today, everybody is talking about BM8's message of how the US$6.5 billion reserves, or parts of it, can be used to lessen the suffering of the people. Jito and his boss, on the other hand, say the reserves should be kept in storage and in the meantime, the masses must continue suffering. This is making the HH team jittery. We can all see why Jito gets the jitterbugs

Goodwell Mateyo

@Ninza84

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