The increase in the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) under President Hakainde Hichilema is not just a fiscal adjustment. It’s a power shift.
For decades, development funds sat in the hands of bureaucrats and political elites, trickling down in crumbs to the people they were meant to empower.
However, President Hichilema flipped the script. By pushing more resources directly to constituencies, he effectively handed the steering wheel of local development to the citizens themselves. 
This is what true decentralisation looks like. Resources, responsibility, and results are rooted at the community level.
From classroom blocks and clinics to youth and women empowerment initiatives, the visible impact of CDF across Zambia speaks volumes.
It’s the clearest evidence that when people are given the means to decide and drive their own priorities, progress stops being a political slogan and becomes a lived reality.
Naturally, this reform has triggered resistance. The loudest critics are not the villagers or small-scale entrepreneurs. It is the cartel of former middlemen who thrived under centralised procurement systems.
For them, the CDF model is a threat to their business-as-usual schemes. They’ve lost grip over inflated contracts, ghost projects, and political kickbacks.
What they label as “mismanagement” is simply frustration that communities are now in charge.
President Hichilema’s approach to governance through CDF isn’t about populism; it’s about structural correction. It dismantles corruption at its source by cutting out intermediaries who turned public service into private enterprise. It promotes inclusiveness, accountability, and local innovation values that build lasting national strength.
The critics may shout, but the numbers tell a different story. Schools are being built faster, local contractors are growing, and young people are finding employment through constituency projects.
The CDF may not perfect. It still requires capacity-building and tighter oversight, but it is undeniably transformative.
In essence, the increase in CDF is not just a budgetary policy. It is a political statement: development belongs to the people, not to the few who once hijacked it.
Those still fighting it are not protecting citizens they’re protecting the old order. And that order is gone.
