Zambia has had a new president for the past 12 months. During this time, the country has achieved nothing worth writing home about.

There is wide-spread starvation. The government in its dubious wisdom has rejected GM grain. The sad thing is that it has failed to bring non-GM grain for the masses. People are surviving on wild roots, some of which are so poisonous that they have to be boiled for hours on end. One wonders why the government prefers the people to eat these roots to GM maize.

There is loud noise about a zero tolerance approach to corruption. So far the "fight" has been ineffectual. A task force has been formed, without legal foundation, to bring the culprits to book! So far it has been a sham.

The economy is dying and there is no hope for improvement on the horizon. Truly, it has been a squandered 12 months.