Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Hon. Stanley K. Kakubo has challenged Missions to generate funds for the Treasury. And Hon. Kakubo has described the just ended Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers’ Meeting as successful.
Addressing Zambia High Commission staff at the Chancery on Tuesday, Hon. Kakubo said for the London Mission, the United Kingdom was a world leading market and financial centre.
“Those of you that have an idea of how financial markets work, the LME (London Metal Exchange) is largely controlled here in London. So there’s a lot of business to be had 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,” Hon. 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, 1 billion pound. There is also money for climate adaptation, I think that’s what they call them.”
He challenged the Mission to produce two reports on generation of 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’,” Hon. Kakubo said.
He emphasized that the thrust of the country’s Foreign Policy was Economic Diplomacy. He also counseled the Mission to come up with Key Performance Indicators 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,” Hon. Kakubo said.
Acting High Commissioner Mrs Lubu Chibwe Nxumalo thanked the Minister for visiting the chancery and counseling the staff.
The Minister returned to Zambia on Wednesday evening after attending the Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers’ Meeting, which he described as successful.
He said Commonwealth Ministers had useful engagements especially that they have not been able to meet in the last two years owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said climate change was one of the issues covered during deliberations at the Commonwealth Secretariat.
“Most of us from the global south have been calling for the release of the adaptation funds to countries like ours that need them. Zambia is a classic case. Even as I speak right now, we’ve had a lot of floods in different parts of the country in unprecedented levels, so we need innovation,” he said.
Hon. Kakubo said the Commonwealth Ministers also discussed issues of innovation to ensure that away from disasters, more trade among Member States was fostered.
He said the status of trade among Commonwealth countries was uneven and therefore needed more innovation to ensure that there was bigger participation.
Hon. Kakubo also said security in the Commonwealth was paramount.
“Without peace as a prerequisite, you can’t do trade, you can’t do any transactions you can’t do business – it’s difficult and also that’s why when there is instability you find that funds that are meant to help countries are taken to towards the demand for enhanced security,” he explained.
“It was a fruitful meeting, what now remains is that we must implement especially issues that were previously agreed in COP 27. As we go towards the end of February, we must be able to tick some boxes before COP 28 as to what has been achieved.”
Hon. Kakubo said the over 50 members of the Commonwealth had influence to push the global community to make good of the commitments that were made at COP 27.