Being present here. Media, as always, ladies and gentlemen, we appreciate your presence here. And may I just start by acknowledging the messages that have been delivered already by those that have spoken before me. Thank you very much for the wonderful messages. I think we must clap for all the speakers that have already delivered wonderful messages this morning. We're still in the morning. But I must also express my gratitude. I was saying so to the president in the side room for this invitation to come and speak here, to be part of your deliberations here because it's assumed heads of states generally assume that they're entitled to attend these gatherings. I'm aware that I'm not entitled by virtue of being head of state, but you extended the invitation, and I'm very happy that you did extend the invitation and to come and underscore the message that this sector is extremely important to the agenda of this government in as far as growth of the economy is concerned. And I'll say one or two things as I speak. So, we're very, very, very emphatic in our programming, basically, the vision, the planning, and where we place different sectors, ICT occupies a critical sector. Not just as a mere sector, but as a platform, as an enabler even in other sectors. I'll make a comment or two about this issue. And your theme cannot be more appropriate than what you have decided to do. Our agenda, you know, following lots of things we had to do when we took public office in 2021 to basically reconstruct this country's economy, which was in a derelict situation not long ago, just 4 and 1/2 years. We were in a difficult situation as an economy here. And our agenda, and remains so, was to reconstruct the economy, and we had to deal with lots of things, debt restructuring, basically, drought, and a number of other challenges, but we always knew that we kept our flag high about our intent, deliberate decision to grow the economy. We would need the ICT sector. We knew. And I'm glad that you've risen to the occasion. May we clap for this sector. So, the theme is doubling the economy. Where I stand, we can achieve more than doubling our GDP because this country has immense potential for growth. The ingredients are there. Resource endowment is there. The timing is right. With the critical minerals that we host as a nation, and the world needs these minerals, the numbers we're talking about are still small. We can do much more. We've been in a comatose situation as a country for too long, far too long. This is a time to explode our growth. And this sector, chair, President, must lead the charge almost in everything that we want to do. This sector must lead the charge because you are the right ones to do so. So, don't look over your shoulder. Just look in the horizon there. And your eyes must pierce through even the walls so we can see things that ordinary people don't see. That's what technology allows us to do, to see things that the ordinary eyes cannot see. So, thank you very much for your choice of theme, and technology in general, artificial intelligence in particular. You already mentioned that we're accelerating the uptake of technology, ICT technology, artificial intelligence. You I'm glad you mentioned the Mingomba mine project. For visitors, this is a project we basically developed out of an existing It's a mining project out of the existing mining tenement. And we all walked over this tenement and we scratching in the corner of the whole tenement, but then technology comes, it's applied, under our noses we discovered one of our largest copper deposits in this country. And we're now developing initial target of over $2 billion mine. And already numbers are showing that it will be a much bigger mine, and we expect that this mine will contribute towards our 3 million tons of copper target per annum, 3 million metric tons of copper per annum, copper alone. So, this mine, when it's in production, it should be able to bring on stream close to 500, 600,000 metric tons. If you do your numbers, 3 million target, one mine alone should give us over 500,000, half a million metric tons. But all this was made possible because of your sector, ICT, artificial intelligence. I think we must clap for this sector. Now, we want to roll over, to roll this technology, these applications, to more mining sites, which we know. I was talking about endowments, resource endowment. We know that the resource endowments are there, but we've not been really using the right approach, the right tools in order to basically discover or confirm the mineable resources that we have in this sector. So, we want to encourage you as a sector to take it personal. Many of my colleagues who have known me for a long time think I take things too personal. But that's how things work. You must take them personal, do your part to the best of your ability, others will do their part, then the whole package will work, and it will work well. You can't expect someone else to do what you are supposed to do. That's the message I'm giving you. Do what you are supposed to do, then other skill sets will do their part, then we'll soldier on to get the economy moving the way we want. And we know why we want our economy to move. We know the value we want to extract from there. We want jobs for our people. Young youthful population, Africa, Zambia is a country Africa is a continent of a youthful population who are assets, but if we don't give them opportunities, can be challenging to manage. And that's why we want this sort of growth. And your role in ICT is to basically allow us, enable us, to achieve this vision. And so we can provide for our youthful population education, as you know here, we've taken a decision to offer free universal education up to secondary school. And as a consequence of that policy, we've brought back to school 2.5 million children. And we are not looking backwards. We want to expand that offering. We want to offer an opportunity to every child of this country. And for us to walk the talk, to continue walking the talk, we already walked the talk, to sustain what we've decided, growth of the economy is fundamental, and the ICT sector is critical to this journey. That's the context here. So, yes, opportunities for young people, education, skills, jobs, business opportunities. And lastly, because the list is long, treasure income. We want to expand the envelope so the cycle goes on and on so we can invest more in sectors that deserve investment, which have been left in a latent form for too long. So, President, we have placed a heavy load on your shoulders, but those of us who are Christians know that we humans place the load on your shoulders, but actually, we are just agents of God. And God cannot place a weight on your shoulder which you cannot carry. So, God knows you can carry that weight. Yeah? So, let me just articulate a little bit around your theme and the growth agenda. Post August this year and Zambians know why I'm saying post August this year, God's will, courtesy of the people of Zambia. In this growth and explosion we're talking about, we now want to drive growth from the regional levels as well. We have 10 provinces in our country and by and large, most of this GDP is generated by five provinces. Top three, then the other two. But this government wants to reverse that situation so that every region, every province now will have a deliberate economic growth programs, projects, investments that will explode the potential of all the 10 provinces. Those that are already doing much better, we'll even invest more in them so that we can deepen their growth and their contribution to the overall economic growth targets. So now your sector again is critical. So the universal coverage you're talking about, the connectivity you're talking about in your speech, to us we put context to it. Contextualize that and that these platforms, this connectivity must be available in every corner of our country so that we can load the development programs and projects and investments upon those platforms. That's the way we see it. And I think I'm here to encourage you to do more than what you've done. The accolades you've won are collective accolades. May we clap for our ICT sector. Yes. The senior we talked about the progress this government has made, the Minister of Technology talked about the contribution of this president. I'm here to tell you that what we are doing is teamwork. Is a result of teamwork. Yes, vision, shared vision is important, but to dive into getting things done, we need everybody. I'm a team player myself. One of my initial businesses for my sins of the past was actually a partnership. And I do realize the importance of the different skills harnessed together, they will deliver more. The synergy and obviously the added value will be obvious. So this is teamwork. I you hear me now say team Zambia in everything. Team Zambia in everything. So because the messages have been delivered already, let me just pick a few threads that we expect that the ICT sector will help us to power value creation. Yes, innovation, yes, but also good governance in the public sector, central government and local government. And I will reference a few things here that are extremely important and therefore as we soldier on economic transformation, the issue around productivity in this country, we have low levels of productivity still. And we want to see an uplift in that area. I'll give you context again. We have our small scale farmers in agriculture that are producing maize at two tons or less than two tons per hectare when they can actually produce seven, eight, 10 tons per hectare. We want technology to help us to scale up the productivity and therefore increase overall production. And there is demand for your services, your skills in there. I've just given one component similar to it, but we have set targets for maize production. We've set targets. This government sets targets. First time this country government is setting targets for delivery. And that's the way to get things done. Not minding too much about the process, but the outcomes, the deliverables. So if we when we inject ICT technology such as for example, irrigation, precision irrigation, yes, on a platform understanding the environment of agronomics, yes, but crop husbandry for this case, we should be with technology able to scale up from one hectare to five, seven, 10 tons. We don't have to cut more trees to create new fields and to protect the environment. We can produce more from the existing fields. So your sector becomes crucial in this area. Just by way of context. We want to see more productivity in traditional sectors, in the mining sector. We already talked about AI in that project. We want to see technology applications in energy. I want to say to you that my pardon of my sins of the past, my business days, I used to be an advisor in the energy sector. And people are surprised how I deal with the energy issues with ease. There's a lot of inefficiencies in this sector. At the generation point, this Victoria Falls power station can produce more power than it is at the moment. We need technological injections in there. If there are Zesco engineers here, they know the numbers. We talk about these numbers. So efficiencies at the generation point in energy, electricity, transmission. We have a lot of transmission losses in this country. This Minister of Technology worked in Zesco. He knows. One of our early days in life he and I worked on a project. I happened to have been the team leader of the project. We were working in the night and the English boys were complaining, 'These Africans are making us work so hard.' But we had to conclude our work we were doing on time. But the point I'm referring to that he knows that we have a lot of transmission losses in this country, in our system. Distribution, don't even talk about. So we need technology, we need ICT to help us isolate how we can improve in our energy sector. Is the point I'm making. So again, underscoring the importance that we have already agreed that ICT is in every sector. So I've given you an example of agriculture, energy, I can go on, mining as well. I said mining as well. So see your scope of work is much bigger than the professionals, your members maybe ever thought. We need you in every sector. Need your skill sets. Definitely in the new industries as well. We want to expand exports. Not just capacity, but efficiencies in the value addition side. Africa adds less value. Is the continent which adds less value to its raw products. Your sector comes handy there. We want to see more processing, more value addition. And again, we're looking up to you to help us revolutionize that so we can export value added products and not raw materials, which we have done for many, many years, including raw human beings at the time of slavery. We cannot continue doing that. We now need to export refined products. Yeah, some people feel itchy about that. History is history. It's there. So I'm only referring to it. So we want to ensure that in that export side, we use exports to contribute to this agenda of your theme. So efficiencies in government services. Let me put context again here. Revenue collection. It's not just efficiencies in delivering services, governmental services, central government, local government, as it were. Communicating quickly, yes, but we want to reduce workshops in government so we can use technology, virtual meetings. Right? Why the excitement? This government president we declared even when we are in opposition that we will be a prudent government. There's a lot of wastage of resources around workshops, around travel and night allowances. So, we're looking for efficiencies that we can still do the same business through a virtual meeting. Right? And then get on to do other things. So, public sector workers, when we cut costs which are consumption oriented or associated, we create those savings. We can actually improve your conditions of service. Is it? So, turn up. I see where people go in this country. Immediately you talk about cutting costs, they start grounding and moaning. But we remember resources are scarce all the time. For us in this area, economics finance, one of the fundamental courses you learn, things you learn is that resources are always scarce. Is what you do with the scarce resources. Your priorities. Our priority is to reduce on consumption expenditure and increase on investment expenditure. When we do that, simple. Why income minus C, consumption of costs is equal to S, savings, is equivalent to I, investment. Very simple. Very simple. And that will lead to a cycle of growth, which is what your theme is. So, in doing that, our priority is to cut consumption expenditure, C, from the income, push income up, push costs down, you'll have more savings, you'll have more investments. Then we grow our economy. We need technology in that area as well. Didn't COVID teach us a lesson? That we were expected to close our offices down under COVID, isn't it? But what enabled us to continue doing business? ICT. Technology. May we clap for the sector? So, let me move on. Even the issue of memos in the public sector, if you ask the guys that work around me, I'm a president who signs the least memos. Hardly sign memos. On the plane here, I'm working. I'm on WhatsApp. I'm sending guidance notes on this one, do this one, this one, do that one, meet this one. I hardly sign written documents. Except they still give me letters to sign. But when I look at the files of my former colleagues, a lot of big volume in as far as our memos they were signing. Now, think of drafting that memo. Think of somebody typing that memo. You don't expect the president to type his own memos. Think of reviewing that memo. The time it takes as opposed to me shooting a WhatsApp message. Technology. ICT. It is making our lives easier. And I say to colleagues in the public sector, this issue of memos is assumed to be deliverables. When you ask, 'Where is it?' They say, 'No, no, I did it in my memo. I've already asked them to do the work.' I said, 'The memo is not equivalent to a deliverable. A memo is a process. So, like ICT to help us cut these processes so we can focus on deliverables.' I hope we're together here. Again, we place that weight on your shoulder and that of your members. I'm sure you can rise to the challenge, members here. So, help us to improve the efficiencies in the public sector. And also, let's go back to revenue collection. Let's go back to revenue collection. There's something we've been grappling with, for example. Lands sit on a lot of revenue. But look at what they collect from what is collectible, very little. We want, Mr. President, your sector to work closely with us. I don't know if Andrew Chipwende is here, but Kuso, I've seen you here. This president set up public private dialogue platform to work with the private sector and the government because we are one. And then the presidential delivery unit. We would like to see a work stream in the PPDF that is dealing with the ICT so that we can work together. We can work together to help revolutionize what we want to do. I think that's a practical step, isn't it? Councils. Every time councils write memos, another memo to the Minister of Finance for funding, equalization fund, this and that. But they are sitting on a lot of revenue. They keep on raising rates, tariffs called rates, but collect very little. So, this president has now said, 'Stop increasing council rates. Actually reduce the council rates. And using ICT, we can now improve the collection capabilities and we'll collect more money.' And we'll collect more money. From what I spent years studying, if you keep on increasing taxes unreasonably, you'll collect less money. Tax theory is the same for centuries. So, now this president has guided that we lower the tariffs, we lower the council rates, but we need you in this sector to help us improve the collection efficiencies. And we can only do that using ICT. Isn't it? So, I would like to see partnership, Mr. President, between yourselves and the central government, yourselves and the local government so that we work together to achieve some of these objectives. And that way, we can contribute to your theme of growing the economy and generating more revenue. But at a lesser pain to individual rate payers. It's a win-win situation, isn't it? Because currently the council rates, when they give you a rate bill, it's like they own your property. So, who owns the property now? The council or the individual owner? Honestly speaking, I'm not joking. Maybe you're not capturing the message here. The rates you find they're charging you 200,000 on a property that you spent so much savings. I was just giving you Y minus C, you know, C is equals to S, which is savings, and then you invested. You didn't consume that money. You invested it. Now it's like it's a crime to have invested the money. Because the council thinks they are preemptive shareholders in your property. Preemptive shareholding means they have the first right of refusal. Right? Or access to your money. So, again, we can make everybody happy. The property owner, the council, right? Everybody will be happy. It's a happy marriage. So, ICT again. I thought I should put context to some of these issues, which now shows you the volume of work, the growth you've talked about. We can triple it. If you go to do more in these areas, central government, local government, and indeed the private sector. There's no question about it. So, I believe I've made a point there that is important. And so, the role of ICT cannot be underrated at all in shaping our economy through the individual digital roles or responsibilities. And we need to make sure that this becomes truly the engine, Mr. President, not peripheral. I mean, the room there you were saying, 'Ah, I'm using this small P.' I said, 'No, no, use this big P. You won't be the head of state.' You see, we just said, 'President of the ICT.' Thank you very much. Just to confirm also a few things, government is committed This government is committed. I'm grateful that you have been following what your government has been doing. I'm very grateful for that. And I always ask Zambians to be attentive to what is going on in their country, the efforts that are being made to change the economy, and the space that they occupy in that bigger picture, in that bigger cake. So, I'm very glad that President, you're following what you're doing. But there's a lot more you can do. This government is committed to basically furthering the opportunities in this sector because they are for mutual benefit. They are of mutual benefits. Your sector and they all grow economy and society. So, I'm sure you're aware that we have a hundred million dollar World Bank project, joint project with us, to expand this sector. So, let's utilize this project effectively. I detest this thing where we have a project, there's funding in the project, but the uptake is so low. And then we stretch to uptake to utilize the project on a longer period We're delaying development. We are delaying the target as per your theme. So, again, let's work with the governmental colleagues, ministers, with the association to see how we accelerate utilization, effective utilization, prudent utilization of that resource envelope. This is critical, really, to helping us achieve our agenda. Nationwide expansion of the digital footprint, I think you have touched on it, the minister has touched on Let's continue doing that. Digital government I've already talked about. Let me again repeat what I said. Post August this year, we are driving regional economies, provincial economies, since we call our regions provinces, and the digital space and utilization is very important there. But we will also now overall drive digitization more than ever before. Because first, what we've been doing was just to restore the economy. Now we have We know what we've done. We have seen the benefits. You see the what we call positive convergence of variables, key variables. What are they? Interest rates coming last, but you've seen inflation going down. The forex market is behaving very well. So, now we want to drive other things. And those things will anchor growth. And I think in the regions, as I said, yeah, we need your support, your participation. You also know that government is doing couple of things that the digital revolution has enabled us to achieve. We're even cleaning up facilities. I'll tell you like social cash transfer, FISP, FISP, cash for work. We don't want duplication. But before we started uptaking digital tools, one fellow will be drawing resources from social cash transfer, and also on FISP, and on cash for work. Once we went digital on FISP alone, inside FISP, we were able to knock out 215,000 non-intended beneficiaries. On just one instrument. Now, imagine how much money we lost over the years. Last 20 years or so. This is not what the government wants. This government. 215,000 unintended beneficiaries were drawing every year facilities on FISP. But they didn't exist. How were they created? Fiction. Even by agriculture officers. They ended up creating dead cooperative members, maybe 30, 40. They don't exist, but we had no capacity to clean up. Now we've cleaned up. So, this year we moved 100% FISP. In fact, that was 70% of the FISP facility we did as just a pilot. So, this year we have done 100%. It means there's more savings. Can you imagine now we can cross to other facilities, cash for work, and other things. It means potentially there are savings that basically we're sitting on, and wastage has been going on for so long. And that money again we take it from consumption to investment expenditure. Your sector becomes important. Test of the pudding is in the eating. We already tested that. So, President, again, we want to see more collaboration between you, your professionals, our professionals, and the public sector, central government, local government. Challenge is for you, but business opportunities. Even for those who are displaying what they're doing outside there. Great great great opportunity. Just to also mention to you, last week on the Youth Day, the government launched the Imisebele app. I think you followed that, some of you. Already it's the biggest kind of in that category of apps in days. And so, we want to continue working with you on issues like that. So, we can connect the youth to job opportunities, to training opportunities. How could we do it without ICT? Yeah. So, we will need your support in there. School curricula, just basic things. School curricula, e-health, e-education, everything. We like to see your involvement, your support in there. I'm sure you are also aware that cabinet sat 2 days ago, and we approved the 24-hour economy. 24-hour economy. So, for you ITs ICT professionals, hakuna kulala. Hakuna kulala. There's no working hour. There's no working day. As you know, this fellow says every hour is a working hour. Every day is a working day. Now it's a 24-hour economy. Truly, there's no sleeping time. What this will do, it will lead us into shifts, it will lead us into utilization of, you know, your artificial intelligence, and we want banks to be alive throughout the day. Transactions must take place throughout the day. Right? And I want to challenge you that this fellow sits on the African Union reform committee. We're working to reform the African Union. A couple of us who are newer in the presidency and come from private sector want to change the narrative that we don't go to Addis Ababa but to talk politics every day, to talk this thing. We want to raise the agenda of our economies at the African Union table. So, we talk more about how we can increase intra-African trade. You are aware of the Africa continental free trade area. Right? It's a mouthful a little bit. Let's call it a free trade area. We trade the least with each other on this continent. You presidents like Yacine there, we challenge you. You cannot allow that situation to sustain itself. We need to change it. What will allow us to deepen intra-African trade is the ICT platforms, connectivity. We are even ambitious there. We are talking about our own clearing house. Huh? So, what are we talking about? We are talking about trade platforms there. Today you go to Eastern DRC, they need food. If you check the shimmer they are eating there, it's meal meal from overseas. Overseas. You know what abroad is different from overseas. Right? It means outside the continent, the seas. To cross the seas, it means you have left Africa, isn't it? You are in the Red Sea or you are in Atlantic or Indian Ocean, or call it anything. But yet, today Zambia is sitting on a surplus maize. But the orders being placed for food in Eastern DRC, our land neighbor, the procurement is overseas. That's criminal. That's absolute criminality. We need to know what stocks of food Zambia has, and the deficit areas, and then move the food. Your platforms will allow us to do more of these things. At the other political level, we are taking those decisions. Now it's for you the professionals to help us walk through those decisions. So, we can do more business, more trade with each other. We know who has more maize on the continent at the touch of a button. We know who needs maize. We know who needs wheat. With these wars going on, we now need to do more with each other. Fertilizer we produce, someone needs fertilizer. It must be a touch of a button at 01:00 in the morning. Since there's no hakuna kulala. Hakuna kulala means there's no sleeping, right? So, Mr. President, this is the kind of stuff that I thought I should share with you when I'm here, rather than just saying things that have already been said. But I'm putting context to what you can do as part of this journey towards doubling our economy. But Africa is an economy can do more. Ghana and Zambia, we should do more. President Mahama and I agreed we should do more with each other. I think when he visited we were able to actually do some deals. Exactly. So, this president doesn't want to go for ceremonial state visits. What I do now, I go for working visits. And I visit my colleagues, we sit. We exchange import lists. We exchange export lists. Then we say, 'Okay, oh, you import this, I have it. Buy from me. You export this, I import this, buy from you.' Take that serious. As the ICT professionals, you make our lives easier. And the lives of a poor kid who needs to be in school. But to be in school, they need us as government to fund them. For us to fund them, we need to generate revenue. For us to generate revenue, we need the economy to expand. For the economy to expand, we need the ICT tools. Simple. Very simple. Where is it? I don't know why people complicate things. Yeah. Your profession brings a lot more to the table. We've talked about generic provisions. What else? In our partnership with the private sector, with yourselves, I'm looking for something. Coming from outside government, I found one of the things that really pisses me off is the slow actions. The delays in getting things done. And we are looking up to you to help us speed up execution. Because you are the ones who can help us. So, in the economy, we still do things too slowly. We're looking up to you to help accelerate the speed at which we execute, even that which we have exchanged memos and agreed. They still take too long to happen. So, speed of execution we're looking from you. I believe that we've covered the things that I wanted to cover. But we want ICT to be inclusive. We don't want to leave out certain sections of the population or businesses or regions. I think comes back to the connectivity, comes back to all the heavy lifting that has been done in terms of investments. But the softer side, we would like to see that coming through as well. Yeah? I was born in a rural place myself. Unlike many of you who were born in the maternity wing of the hospital, me, I was born in the village, grass thatch house, no running water. My grandmother was a midwife to my mother. We do not want that situation to continue for our mothers, aunties, nieces. So, we want to see ICT again to help us on the maternity side of the health. Right? So, they can access medical advice through connectivity, even in the remotest rural areas. We want those clinics This president has directed that all health facilities must have maternity wings. I'm sure Zambians are aware of that. But having a maternity wing is one, but we also want that maternity wing to have connectivity to a superior doctor somewhere. Because we may not have all the staff at that local level. And we'll save a mother, we'll save the life of the child. Those are practical things, Mr. President, we would like you to include in your work schedule stream, call it whatever you want. How are we placed in those environments? That includes schools. How are we placed? Yeah? So, no one should be left behind. Communities, regions, youth, elderly people. I was saying to a minister, I'm a farmer myself. Some things I do. And before the onset of this mobile money, right? To pay salaries to some of our ranches which are in the remote area, you have to physically move cash there. Now, all of our rural ranches, salaries come mobile money. So simple. You made our life easy. Can we clap for ICT? So, now the risk of being hacked by thieves is minimal. Because the thieves used to start I'm not joking. A lot of my neighbors got shot dead around salaried pay time. Because the thieves followed them to the bank, they saw them withdraw the money, followed them to the farm, and took them out. Now, that business, that opportunity, if you want to call it that, is gone. You don't have to carry cash. So, thank you very much for that. May I also say we're looking for solutions which are Zambia grown, which are Africa grown. Don't just consume these technologies as professionals. I'm challenging you now. Right? Kenya came up with M-Pesa. M-Pesa? Yeah? Ghana is doing couple things. Mr. President here, we want you to innovate here. Young people must produce products that are appropriate for our own economic environment. I'm talking about ICT products. So, let's move in that direction as well. I do believe that then we'll have appropriate technology. You must collaborate beyond your own profession. Again, for my sins of the past, being running a partnership business, I told you already I learned the art of valuing the next door guy. I grew up in a professional home. I didn't have an office in the areas. We shared the desks. A desk, big desk, then we all sat around. And I value that kind of stuff. And then the file moved from one place, one person to another with different skills injected in one product. Cross fertilize. You like backroom? Someone already talked about it. At work, we ensure we should Bamutaja? We like what you do in the night in the backroom. But step out to cross fertilize with other professions as a profession. Many of you are engineers, a bit insular, and like priding yourselves over your technical capability, but your technical capability only matters if you can solve a problem, a real life problem. Isn't it? So, talk to other professions. I'm here to challenge you. Talk to other professions. And vice versa. Help us to fight cyber crimes. We love technology, but it's also becoming a menace. Harassing women using the technology. Stealing money using technology. Right? Pulling down systems. The same skill that you hold can be used dangerously. Can we use our skills properly? Let's be proper professionals by using our skills to solve problems, not to steal money through the digital technological ways. Not to entice people about Ponzi schemes. Ponzi schemes. I mean, subject of this no HH is sponsoring this. Can you contribute so much so that you can be paid so much? Let us fight this together. And that's the challenge, Mr. President, and the other presidents from the continent. Let's benchmark in this area, our president here of ICT Association of Zambia. Let's benchmark. No need to reinvent the wheel. If Kenyans have found a solution on the cyber crimes, Ghanaians have found a solution. President Mahama actually gave me brief I think, Minister, you're aware. Gave me suggestions on what they're doing there. And we would like to piggyback on that. Yes, we talk of you developing products, but you must also network so that you don't waste time to research on something whose solution has already been found somewhere. So, please network, benchmark. As I sit down, let me say to you, no profession works alone. I've already touched on that. You are part of the Zambian economy. You are part of the African economy. Be truly part of the Zambian economy and the African economy. Let us work as teams. Let us build a digital platform or platforms that are durable, reliable, that are efficient, that will pick problems. Right? Solve those problems. Innovation, talked about it. This country has to develop. Come rain, come drought, this country has to continue posting growth. We posted over 4% growth in the worst drought in living memory. We still grew the economy. So, with your technology, your knowledge, we would like now to build resilience so that in challenging times, we can rely on technology, on ICT, rely on you to build resilience so that growth and more growth is realized with attendant benefits. Let's love our country. I hear a lot of things. I read social media. I said, 'This chap posting this thing, is he a Zambian?' Let's love our country passionately. Then that will be seen in the way we do work in our profession. Let's love Africa. This business of crossing the Sahara onto the Mediterranean Sea and dying on those boats, I know. Let's keep our young people here because we can offer them opportunities. And the opportunities are there. May God bless you all. May God bless our country and our continent.
