Debate: Formal sitting - Address by Hakainde Hichilema, President of the Republic of Zambia
Date: THURSDAY, 23 JUNE 2022
Speaker: Hakainde Hichilema
Language: EN

Allow me first and foremost to express our sincere condolences on behalf of the people of Zambia, and indeed on my own behalf, on the passing of his excellency Mr David Sassoli, former President of the European Parliament. May his soul rest in peace. Honourable Members, this is the first time in Zambia’s history that a sitting president addresses a European Union Parliament, and it is a source of great pride for our country that we have been recognised as an exemplary democracy on the African continent and as a key cooperating partner of the European Union. We thank you for this recognition, and we look forward to deepening our engagement and collaboration in the coming years, which should result in tangible benefits for both the people of the Republic of Zambia and indeed the European Union. May I address my 2017 incarceration, which the President of the Parliament has indicated.  Honourable Members, it is a particular privilege for me to personally address this Parliament given the circumstances of 2017. I am talking about the incarceration.  Following our unlawful incarceration in 2017, the EU Parliament boldly and consistently demanded not only for my release, but also for the restoration of the rule of law in our country and of course, human rights. And an official resolution was passed by yourselves. An official resolution was passed by yourselves – this is absolutely, absolutely humbling to us.  The resolution of 2017 on Zambia, particularly the case of one Hakainde Hichilema, who happens to be myself, was a mark of true solidarity and real commitment to protecting human rights. I remain indebted to you for standing up for human rights and freedom, not only for myself and my co—accused, but for all of the people of the Republic of Zambia under the extremely difficult circumstances that we faced at the time.  I thank you most sincerely for this gesture. Truly the people of Zambia thank you for taking a principled position on the promotion of human rights in our country and indeed on our continent.  The Zambia 2021 elections deserve my comment, our comment.  Honourable Members, Zambia’s general elections held last year in August; in that time, that election, the people of Zambia demonstrated remarkable strength and resolve in their determination to preserve Zambia’s democracy by voting out the party then which was in government and voting for us into government.  It was a very extraordinary display of willpower and people power in the face of economic hardships and indeed political intimidation. In the face of economic hardships it was difficult for ordinary people to make such a democratic decision as they did in our favour.  And it’s clearly, clearly, you know, we owe the people of Zambia a huge gratitude for that. They decided that they wanted change for a better livelihood, given the circumstances that they faced.  This was not only merely an election, but a call to action, a call for change. The youth, I must say, who made up 56% of our registered voters, were at the heart of this call for change. I must acknowledge that, and we thank them for that. They showed leadership, courage, determination, at a time when Zambia needed those qualities the most because democracy was under threat at that particular time.  On a continent where far too often elections turn out violent, but in our country we able to go through a smooth, non-violent transition, once again, because our country has done it several other times since 1991, when we moved from a one-party state control to a democracy; peaceful change then, peaceful change in 2011; peaceful change in 2021. Really, credit goes to the people of Zambia for being resilient and for their love for democracy.  This is what Zambia is known for. This is who we are. And we intend to continue on this path on our continent, which sometimes is described negatively – if not sometimes, most of the times, I must say.  Honourable Members, as we reflect on this achievement, I wish to once again express our sincere gratitude to the European Union, yourselves, who, together with others, deployed a physical observer mission in our country to observe elections led by one of you here, the honourable Member of this House, Ms Maria Arena. Thank you to you, madam, and your team. The observer mission was a continuation of the long-standing relationship that we’ve had with the European Union and a clear demonstration of commitment by yourselves to supporting Zambia’s democratic process – well acknowledged and appreciated. On behalf of the people of Zambia, I wish to place on record our deep sense of gratitude to you in the EU, who once again demonstrated your commitment to walking alongside us in our quest for development under difficult circumstances. We thank you for that.  May I address the issues of human rights – human rights, governance and anti-corruption in our country.  Honourable Members, in Zambia we inherited a very difficult situation, and Zambia at the time of elections was on the brink of economic collapse, where corruption, excess and greed of public officials reigned supreme. No one stood in their way. They got what they wanted, yet they were supposed to be servants of the people, not to be served, but they chose to be served. So much short-sighted policies were put in place, designed to extract maximum benefit for the few at the expense of the many, where the order of the day was basically converting public resources into private hands. Really an unacceptable situation.  In Zambia, we inherited freedom of expression, freedom of association; civic participation was curtailed. Our democratic institutions designed to ensure checks and balances were compromised, ladies and gentlemen, honourable Members of this House, and reduced to mere instruments of dominance for those who held power – very evident.  It is against that backdrop that I stand here to firmly attest that the rule of law, following the changes in our elections in August, the rule of law and respect for human rights are a matter of priority in terms of their restoration. And we did just that.  One of our major pronouncements after taking office was to indicate to all our citizens that community violence, political thuggery was unacceptable, and anyone who engaged in that from the then ruling party at the time or from our own party would be on their own. And that signified the end of community violence.  And today, Zambians can move freely at bus stops, at markets, widows, single mothers, trading to take care of their children, without the violence which we experienced only 11 months ago. Leadership, in our view, is key in these areas.  I must say Zambia’s reputation for peace and democracy is a source of great pride to us, which our administration will continue to protect and safeguard. The peace, stability and unity of our beloved nation is not up for any negotiation at any cost. And we want to make sure that as we progress managing public affairs, we strengthen institutions so that in future no one comes again with such heavy handedness.  I think it’s important for us to draw the line and ensure that such things don’t become common in future. But we need partners to do that. You are the partners, you are some of the partners. A free media is indispensable, ladies and gentlemen, to a democratic governance and our administration will protect this fundamental principle of democracy in our national discourse. As you may know – probably you don’t – in the last government so many media houses were shut down. And we committed when we came into office that not a single media house would shut because the government had sacked it; it would shut because it had failed to operate commercially. That would be the only reason, or indeed other reasons, not the political shutdowns which we experienced.  We committed to this because it is important to provide checks and balances. Every single Zambian is welcome to participate in the governance of our country. It is the right of every citizen and our government to lead by listening to the will of the people at all times.  Honourable Members, may I address legislative reform in our country. The state of our country in terms of democratic governance, economic performance and upholding human rights, as I have said already, demands that we take bold action to arrest its decline, which we inherited at the time. This is why we have placed reform at the very top of our agenda; amongst the critical issues that we place particular attention is the legislative reform, as I said, to curtail excesses of the past.  It’s important that we don’t just legislate, but we also strengthen institutions, oversight institutions, because it’s not possible to legislate and expect results without – without – actually ensuring compliance. And compliance is better delivered by institutions that will outlast a political party in office – very important to us.  Honourable Members, as part of these reforms and in response to the extensive recommendations, yet again, I must say, by the EU observer mission – I see her still sitting over there – thank you madam, thank you very much – your extensive recommendations by your missions and others our government will undertake, it has already started undertaking significant electoral reforms, electoral reforms that would tackle inherent weaknesses in the system and mainly to progress towards increasing the independence of our electoral commission, our electoral body. Because this is important to ensure participation of citizens is guaranteed, transparency is guaranteed at all levels of political competitive elective offices – grassroots, up to the president’s. It’s very important to us.  May I comment a little bit about our youth. Honourable Members, as an administration, we regard our election not as a triumph but as a challenge. Very important. Our challenge over the next five years is to lay the foundations that will see a prosperous future for Zambia’s future generations.  It is important to us that we must and we will tap into and enhance the innovation, wonder of the youth who hold enormous potential in developing new and intensive, inventive rather, responses to the challenges that we face as a country. Our children and youth are our future, as it is here in Europe – no question about it. It is in them that we shall invest in the coming years, invest probably disproportionately higher in skills development amongst our youth, because it is very, very important that we do that.  And we want to rebuild our economy and repair the social fabric of our country to create opportunities, as I said, for skills, for jobs, for self-employment, for our youth. This is why our administration has made primary, ladies and gentlemen, and secondary education completely free, even in a challenged environment with a restricted treasury, our first budget delivered free education, universal education for all our children, especially children from disadvantaged families, underprivileged families.  We have a debate going on in Zambia at the moment, ladies and gentlemen, where the colleagues in the opposition, probably rightly so, are saying that our policy of free education has failed. And why? Because there’s over enrolment in the classrooms. There are more pupils than ever before, before the policy was introduced. And we have responded and said it’s a clear demonstration that children were not in school before the free education policy was implemented.  Our challenge now is to buy more desks, to build more classroom space, and we are committed to doing that. I think this is the level, the level we see the importance of the youth and tooling, re-tooling the youth for their future development.  Ladies and gentlemen, coupled with a free education, we have also increased what we call a constituents development fund to basically decentralise resource allocation to match the local priorities of our people in the constituencies, all of the constituencies across the country. And then they will decide what is the priority for development for them. And this government – our government – has allocated resources to allow them to implement those developmental priorities that they’ve decided upon. Never happened before. It never happened before us.  Just to give you a contrast: 11 months ago the Constituency Development Fund in our local currency was ZMK 1.6 million – nothing! In our office budget we’ve increased this to ZMK 25.7 million, close to USD 1.6 million per constituency to be decided by the local people. It’s fundamental. You may not see it that way here because you are a big economy, but this is basically a life-changer in our country.  Let me comment a little bit on our economy and Zambia-EU cooperation. It’s very important that we comment on this.  Honourable Members, the performance of the Zambian economy over the last decade has been on a downward trajectory. The rising cost of basic commodities is the order of the day. The cost of fuel, inflation, poor economic policies – as I mentioned earlier – had basically left our economy on its knees before we took office. Our country, yet with so much wealth in terms of potential, was reduced to abject poverty. Our people were reduced to abject poverty. This is unacceptable, 58 years after independence.  Repairing, therefore, restoring and reviving our economy will therefore be the main marker of our government’s performance. That will be the main marker. As a government, we want to make sure that our people are considered first as public servants, which you are yourselves in this Parliament.  Our people come first. We are there to serve, not to be served by them. A clear contrast from the previous regime. This is our priority and the bedrock upon which we want to develop policies around. This is the change that drove us to be ushered into office. And this is it. That’s what we have to work on.  We are committed to becoming a more productive and industrious country over the years to come. Zambia has a lot of capacity to produce quality goods and services for the EU and other regional and global markets. We therefore seek a favourable trade and investment relationship with yourselves in Europe for mutual benefit – very important to us.  Small and medium enterprises are crucial to us in this regard. We want to make sure that these become part of the building blocks for our economic revival going forward. We look to you, our partners – I shall repeat this – we look to you, our partners, to work with us to establish financial assistance packages that aid research, development, technology and skills that will create new and sustainable Zambian small and medium enterprises.  We look to working with you as the EU to help us to improve access to credit for SMEs through initiatives such as the Global Investment Package, which will lead to increased industrialisation, agricultural production, manufacturing, trade and sustainable energy sources for our SMEs.  This is the surest and most sustainable way of creating meaningful employment, and of course diversifying our economy. We are encouraged by the first ever, ladies and gentlemen, we are encouraged by the first ever Zambia-EU economic forum, which we recently held in Lusaka under the theme ‘Economic Transformation through Green Growth’. We’re very, very enthused about this occasion, and it was the first of its kind between the EU and Zambia – very, very encouraging to us.  This important engagement, which brought together entrepreneurs, corporate institutions, financial institutions from Europe, obviously working with our own people, our own enterprises in Zambia, is very, very highly appreciated, and we expect that it will become an annual event going forward because we must institutionalise this, we must ensure continuity of the progress that we made.  This is in line with our recognition of the private sector as a key driver of our economy, of course with government support; this is a crucial part of our government’s efforts to repair, restore and revive Zambia’s economy, anchored around these issues. Our government wishes to leverage on these initial steps and ensure that the red tape and other barriers are dealt with.  Our economy is open for business, ladies and gentlemen, once more, our economy is open for business. Zambia is back in business. As you would say it in football here – Europe like Africa has a love of football – we are back in the Champions League.  Ladies and gentlemen, food insecurity and climate change, just to address that a little bit.  Honourable Members, as the world faces critical shortages of key agricultural produce and as we witness the devastating effects of food insecurity in all our regions of Africa, and beyond, Zambia is well-placed. May I remind the House, Zambia is well placed and suited and aims to be a major contributor to addressing this insecurity in the food around the world.  In this regard, I am pleased to note that Zambia and the EU have increasingly collaborated in agricultural endeavours and I urge more collaboration in this important sector. Ladies and gentlemen, Zambia has the potential to be the solution to food instability in our region, and we intend to work with you to realise this potential. We urge you and our European partners, you are the European partners, as a collective, as the European Union, but also as individual member countries, to come on board and explore the numerous opportunities for joint investments in Zambia’s agricultural sector – huge potential, good agronomic conditions, soils, sun, you know, clean water, fresh water not saltwater, fresh water. Basically a good climate for growing food.  As we work to increase our agricultural and industrial output, we are cognizant of a responsibility to do so sustainably – sustainably. This is why our government is taking concrete steps to harness Zambia’s potential to develop renewable energy, ladies and gentlemen, as well as sustainable agriculture to mitigate the devastating impacts of climate change.  We have created the first ever Minister of Green Economy and Environment in our country’s history to dedicate efforts to sustainability as we engage in agriculture, in our quest to develop green energy. We want sustainability to be the order of the day. We are keen to leverage on these areas and to create joint investment opportunities between yourselves and ourselves.  Honourable Members, in pursuit of our economic transformation, we look to cooperating with other partners, you our partners, European partners as a whole, as I said, but also as individual countries. While we appreciate development support from yourselves and others, we look forward to more partnerships, greater investment and trade. This is the most sustainable way to work together, and Zambia is up to the task in this area.  Ladies and gentlemen, let me address the issue of migration. I’m sure you expect me to do that – the issue of migration.  Honourable Members, in enhancing collaboration and partnership on various issues, Africa and the EU must take advantage of the presence of the skilled human capital available on both continents – on both continents.  And we are talking about skills from women. The skills from our women, the skills from our youth, who have the energy. These are most desired because they will provide that skilled labour for longer periods of time and help to look after the older skill holders as they retire. I think it’s an important equation to look at.  So ladies and gentlemen, honourable Members, Africa and Europe have a lot in common, and our people have a lot to learn from one another. Africa and Europe have traded with each other for centuries – even in the Stone Age era, the Iron Age era the two continents traded with each other. I believe it’s true because we just got separated. If you look at the distance that separates Africa and Europe, it’s so small. It means at one point we just used to walk over to each other’s village. And obviously the climate over millions of years changed that situation for us.  It is important that easing the movement of labour between our continents will, and therefore should, contribute to peer-to-peer knowledge exchange, improve the flow of information and bring about new innovations. Putting in place therefore, honourable Members, putting in place formal agreements and easing the movement of people between our regions will also assist in reducing illegal and negative migration. No one wants illegal and negative migration, but we must open up formally so that people can move.  If we can be specific, certainly at the moment between Zambia and Europe and EU individual countries, there’s more movement of people, easy movement of people, from your continent to our country. I think we need to ensure that we really look at this situation together and begin to arrest this problem from source, deal with this negative migration from source, working together.  I think it is not healthy to push back people on ships once they have accessed your countries. We can pre-empt that. We can proactively avoid that. I believe we can work together in that sphere.  Ladies and gentlemen, we stand ready to channel our resources and energies towards achieving the benefits that are ready to be unlocked for our people in collaborating with yourselves. And I want to repeat, we as a country are open for business. Zambia is ready to transact with yourselves.  The International Monetary Fund – honourable Members, we strive to deal with one of our challenges, which is debt which we inherited. And we are very, very grateful for the support that the European Union has rendered to Zambia in unlocking our debt situation. And to that score, we are very pleased that on 16 June, which is only last week, the first creditors’ meeting under the common framework took place. And we want to congratulate and thank France, a member of the European Union, and the Republic of China that co-chaired the creditors’ meeting. Thank you to the European Union for your support. But we need you to continue supporting us in resolving our debt crisis.  Peace and stability – I’m sure you expect me to address this issue and I want to address it as well, very briefly. Peace and security. Peace and security. Honourable members, Zambia has been a bastion of peace and stability in our region and our continent since independence. We aim to maintain this distinguished reputation as we continue to lead and participate in efforts to restore peace in the troubled regions of not just Southern Africa, but Africa and the continent at large.  This is extremely important. Zambia remains actively involved in the ongoing operations in the northern part of Mozambique called Cabo Delgado, where there’s extremism there. Zambia remains engaged on the issues around the conflict between the DRC, eastern Congo and Rwanda. It’s very important that we remain engaged. As the world grapples with instability in various regions, we wish to express most sincerely our government’s concern regarding the ongoing war in Ukraine. We are extremely concerned about that situation.  It is tragic and heart-breaking to witness the thousands of lives lost and the millions displaced unnecessarily as a result of an altogether avoidable conflict in Ukraine. While we stand by those that are directly affected by the war, both in Ukraine and in neighbouring countries – our own neighbouring countries and your own – there have been far-reaching consequences arising from this conflict and other conflicts, particularly on food – food security or insecurity, fuel, fertiliser and other commodities.  As a country, these three things are challenging our own economic reconstruction efforts. Food prices, fuel prices and fertiliser prices, and they are beginning to drive the cost of living, which will impact negatively more on the very poor that we would like to support to improve their living standards. And war is not what we need – anywhere, anywhere, any part of. We therefore categorically say no to war in Ukraine and elsewhere.  And we continue to urge the parties directly and indirectly involved to resolve these matters from the negotiation tables.  That’s the correct way of doing it.  As I stated, ladies and gentlemen, in my maiden address to the African Union Assembly in February this year, and I want to quote myself, then I said, ‘instability anywhere is instability everywhere’. There’s no question about it. We’ve seen that ourselves.  We prefer and we argue to this Parliament and beyond this Parliament, we prefer to channel, all of us, our resources, energy, indeed time to resolving conflicts in all regions of the world. We should all focus on improving the lives of our people everywhere in our interconnected world instead of waging wars.  I must repeat this. We must focus our energies, all of us, on improving the welfare, the lives of our people, children, women, old people, differently abled and other disadvantaged communities, all of us, rather than waging wars across the world. I think that message must go and go straight.  Honourable Members of the distinguished European Parliament, in conclusion, I wish to express once more, I wish to express once more profound gratitude for the support that you rendered personally to me in my difficult times and to the people of Zambia during the dark days in our democratic development as a country. Thank you very much for your support.  We also wish to thank the European Parliament for the incredible honour, incredible honour and privilege of addressing this esteemed House today. We are so grateful to you because we know you are busy, you have a lot on your plate, but you allowed us to address you, to listen to us. Zambia’s partnership with the EU is built on a strong foundation of mutual respect, shared values and belief in the core tenets of democracy.  We look forward to growing this partnership significantly over the years to come, and we are confident of the benefits that our joint efforts will surely yield for our people in Zambia and indeed in the European Union. I thank you for your kind attention.