‘Send money home, not perfumes’, Government tasks Zambian missions abroad

Zambian mission abroad have been challenged to start making resources for the government, according to Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Stanley Kakubo.

Kakubo said this in a statement issued in Lusaka on Friday that it was important for mission abroad to start generating resources to the Treasury unlike the current situation where they depended on the government for finance.

Addressing Zambia High Commission staff at the Chancery on Tuesday, Kakubo indicated that the United Kingdom (UK) was a world leading market and financial centre hence need for the Mission in London to take advantage of it.

“Those of you that have an idea of how financial markets work, the London Metal Exchange (LME) is largely controlled here in London. So there’s a lot of business to be done here. I think the last time I came here, we signed the one billion pound Compact Fund with the then Minister Vicky Ford, she was in charge of Africa,”Kakubo said.

“That’s where solutions to some of the challenges we sit on actually are found. If you’ve sent the reports on how to extract that money to capital, I haven’t seen any. There’s money for SMEs there. There’s money to support women in business in that Compact, one billion pound. There is also money for climate adaptation, I think that’s what they call them.” He said.

He challenged the Mission to produce two reports on how to generate money for the Treasury and how to mitigate some challenges being facing.

“You must do your part in generating the business here. I think the President Hakainde Hichilema once put it very nicely when he was swearing in some Heads of Mission a few months ago when he said ‘when you’re in the Missions, your job is not to send perfume back home; your job is to send money back home’,” Kakubo said.

He emphasized that the thrust of the country’s Foreign Policy was Economic Diplomacy.

Kakubo also urged the Mission to come up with Key Performance Indicators(KPI) quarterly, bi-monthly and yearly.

“If we are just turning up for work, we will not know whether we are making progress or not. And the reason we say that KPIs must be generated by the Mission is because there are some Missions where we do not expect that you will be making huge sums of money for government,” Kakubo said.

Acting High Commissioner Lubu Chibwe Nxumalo thanked the Minister for visiting the Chancery and for counseling the staff.

Contributed by Julius Phiri

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