By Brian Matambo

Ambassador Emmanuel Mwamba’s EMV Sunday edition, co-hosted by Pumulo Situmbeko, popularly known as Queen Phumie and leader of the New Era Democratic Party, put the president’s upbeat address to Parliament under an unsparing microscope. What emerged was a methodical challenge to the headline claims of recovery and reform, and a portrait of a country where numbers glow on paper while households and small businesses face rolling blackouts, volatile prices, and a rising sense that institutions are being bent to fit politics.

A BIG SPEECH, AND BIGGER QUESTIONS
The president’s message was simple. The economy is rebounding. Debt is largely resolved. Mining is expanding. Agriculture is breaking records. Energy diversification is on course. The social sector is widening access. EMV’s broadcast asked a blunt question. Do the figures reflect reality on the ground, and are they consistent with the government’s own records.

Mwamba walked viewers through the growth claim of 5.2 percent since 2021, recalling that official projections have repeatedly been revised downward mid-year. He contrasted the glossy top line with a season of drought, deepening load-shedding, and businesses operating in survival mode. Queen Phumie pushed the point with the clarity of a campaigner. Economic statistics that cannot be felt by workers, marketeers, or students are not statistics that persuade.

The program situated this skepticism in a broader credibility gap. Changes at the national statistics agency created a perception problem that government has not dispelled. When baseline indicators are adjusted and new growth narratives are unveiled without compelling sector outputs behind them, citizens will discount the message.

DEBT RELIEF, OR DEBT RHETORIC
The government’s signature claim is that more than nine tenths of external debt has been restructured, freeing resources for schools, clinics, and roads. EMV countered that the restructuring picture remains incomplete, and that domestic arrears and maturing obligations to banks and contractors are a serious risk. If local debt remains heavy and opaque, the relief narrative becomes a two-sided coin. One side shows breathing room. The other shows a credit system under strain.

This is not a semantic issue. If external accounts look tidier while domestic arrears mount, the real economy will still feel cash-starved. Small contractors cannot pay staff. Suppliers tighten terms. Banks move defensively. EMV’s point was that sustainability is measured in the flow of payments through the whole system, not only in a communiqué headline.

MINING: CAPITAL COMMITMENTS WITHOUT CLEAR BENEFITS
The broadcast devoted long minutes to Mopani, KCM, and Kansanshi. The hosts argued that celebrated transactions have not translated into transparent cash flows to the Treasury, nor clear pathways to settle historic liabilities. The charge is that Zambia has accepted structures that emphasize output and expansion on paper while limiting national leverage over price, royalties, and reinvestment.

Strip the rhetoric and the analytic core is straightforward. What is the net present value of Zambia’s take under each deal. What is the path for clearing legacy debts to workers, pension funds, and local contractors. What precise protections exist against the externalization of profits and the erosion of future bargaining power. EMV’s claim is that these answers are either missing or unsatisfying. Until they are provided, “billions in commitments” read as a promise rather than a policy victory.

AGRICULTURE AND ENERGY: CLAIMS COLLIDE WITH THE GRID
The president’s speech celebrated record seed production, expanding irrigation, and diversification in power. EMV brought viewers back to two stubborn facts. A severe drought that dented yields and household food security, and load-shedding that now defines daily life. When families and enterprises spend most hours without electricity, promises about new megawatts and new hectares ring hollow.

Queen Phumie used an unglamorous but telling example. The Lusaka to Kabwe artery, fully funded and urgent, remains incomplete years later. If a straightforward road project cannot reach the finish line, the promise of three new airports becomes a metaphor for misplaced priorities. Fewer than one in ten Zambians fly. Meanwhile everyone depends on roads, power, clean water, and predictable prices.

THE COST OF LIVING TEST
EMV returned again to the food basket. The program cited a monthly cost that now swallows the income of many families before rent, transport, or school fees. The exchange rate’s whiplash puts more pressure on fuel and imports, and the inflation narrative becomes suspect when currency volatility wipes out planning horizons. This is where grand macro narratives must pass a simple test. Can a barber, a salon, a butcher, or a market stall forecast next month’s input costs and keep the doors open. When the answer is no, growth on slides will not rescue confidence on the street.

COURTS ARE A “LAST RESORT,” EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE NOT
Perhaps the most damaging segment addressed the president’s admonition to make court action the last resort. EMV contrasted those words with the state’s relentless litigation against the Lungu family over burial arrangements. Viewers did not need legal theory to spot a contradiction. Reconciliation is a practice. If the government preaches dialogue while litigating on the rawest personal matter, the sermon loses power.

The show then widened the lens to rule of law concerns. The reported assault on an opposition MP within parliamentary grounds. Arrests of journalists and whistleblowers. A young woman, Ethel Chisono Edward, allegedly seized in a manner that has drawn the attention of the U.S. Embassy, which republished an executive order on wrongful detention of American citizens. Even if one rejects elements of these accounts, the pattern is corrosive. A government cannot simultaneously market a return to institutionalism and tolerate spectacles that suggest impunity.

BILL 7 RETURNS LIKE A BAD DEBT
EMV framed Bill 7 as the most serious immediate risk to constitutional order. The Constitution Court has already spoken, yet the Speaker and the executive appear set on a return to the floor. Callers and co-hosts linked this to a strategic desire to tilt the electoral playing field before 2026 through redesigned representation and presidential appointments. Whether one accepts the leaked strategy documents discussed on the program, the governing test remains clear. Will proposed amendments broaden participation and strengthen checks, or will they centralize advantage. If it is the latter, citizens will treat any economic progress as insecure because the rules can be rewritten.

THE LANGUAGE OF CONTEMPT
The broadcast played back the now familiar trope that “Zambians are lazy.” It is a false and politically costly claim. For instance in Lusaka we have seen how mothers wake before dawn to buy vegetables and chicken at city market razor-thin margins, and hustle through outages that destroy inventory and income. To call that laziness is to misunderstand both the recession of opportunity and the dignity of effort. The moral tone of a government matters. If officials speak with contempt, they cannot recruit the patience required for long reforms.

There is a constituency in Zambia that still wants reform to succeed. It includes small businesses that have survived four hard years and cannot afford two more on the same terms. It includes opposition figures who are tired of performative outrage and want measurable fixes. It includes citizens who would rather read good numbers and believe them. EMV’s Sunday edition asked the presidency to speak to that constituency with honesty and detail. If State House does, the optimism will have something to stand on. If it does not, the numbers will keep bouncing while the ground under them gives way.