President Hakainde Hichilema used Friday's opening of the First Session of the 14th National Assembly to put the public service on notice, telling civil servants that attendance is not delivery and warning MPs that every allowance has an alternative use.
The value of the public service can no longer be measured by reporting at 8 hours and knocking off at 17 hours, without measurable deliverables and benefits to our people.
— President Hakainde Hichilema, addressing Parliament on Friday 9 October, quoted by Lusaka Times
"That does not constitute work. It does not constitute delivery," he added. The Presidential Delivery Unit and the Public Private Dialogue Forum — both created to improve service delivery — will be streamlined to serve the Grow Zambia targets. "After all, they are born out of public resources, so they must be accountable to the public," the President said. More services will move onto ZamPortal and the Government Service Bus, with a promise of fewer administrative barriers and a lower cost of dealing with Government.
A word for the benches in front of him
Some of the sharpest lines were aimed at the MPs themselves. "When we put pressure on the Speaker for more allowances, remember we could use those allowances to keep more kids in school," he said. "Maybe we are already comfortable ourselves. Let's release resources to those who need them the most."
He described the rise in the Constituency Development Fund from K1.6 million to K40 million per constituency as revolutionary, while conceding the fund is not always used well: "All of us in this House must agree that we can do better in effective utilisation of this tool, and it has got no partisanship in it." Protecting the CDF was among the reasons the Government gave for restoring excise duty on fuel this month, alongside free education, school feeding and the Social Cash Transfer.
On corruption, the President was blunt. "We reiterate our position that there will be no sacred cows in the fight against corruption. None. None at all," he said. "As we have stated before, if you engage in corruption, you are on your own." Departing from his text, he added: "When people get prosecuted, they cry isms. Whatever isms are convenient... Public resources belong to the public. Full stop."
News Diggers, reporting the same address, noted the President's call to address what he termed the domestic and toxic environment in the country, and his insistence that progress from the first term is now visible: a stabilised economy, restored order and renewed confidence.
The same week offered a small illustration of the machinery he wants defended. The Anti-Corruption Commission charged a 25-year-old Lusaka taxi driver with one count of corrupt practices, alleging he sent K5,000 by mobile money to officers of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife in Nakonde to induce the release of 56 vulturine guineafowl intercepted at Nakonde Bus Station — birds valued at more than K200,000, the ACC's head of corporate communications, Joseph Mwenya, said, per Lusaka Times.
Sources: Lusaka Times, ““If you engage in corruption, you are on your own”: Hichilema puts civil servants and MPs on notice” (10 Oct 2026); News Diggers, “HH opens Parley, vows to deal with toxicity in the environment” (10 Oct 2026).