LOOK AT MALAWI US$0.5 BILLION IN RESERVES: THE RESULTS?
Our neighbours in Malawi are living the painful consequences of exactly what some of our politicians are now proposing. Malawi’s foreign reserves have fallen to $526.8 million just 2.1 months of import cover. The result? Severe fuel shortages. A collapsing currency. A government so desperate it was forced to sell its own gold reserves just to pay for fuel imports. Ordinary Malawians, the same workers and farmers that politicians claim to care about are the ones suffering most.
This is not a theory. This is not a campaign scare tactic. This is happening right now, right next door. This is exactly what happens when a government abandons its reserves to chase short term political popularity. When reserves collapse, the currency crashes. When the currency crashes, fuel becomes scarce. Mealie meal becomes unaffordable. Medicine disappears from shelves. The poorest people pay the highest price every single time.
Zambia has been there before. We lived that nightmare under the previous administration with depleted reserves, debt default, a kwacha in freefall and a nation on its knees. President Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND Alliance made the hard, unpopular but necessary decisions to rebuild our reserves, restructure our debt and restore Zambia’s financial credibility. Those decisions protected every Zambian family, especially the poorest.
To those now campaigning on the promise of abandoning reserves in favour of short term handouts, Zambia is watching Malawi. We know where that road leads. We will not go back.
Saviour Chishimba
President
United Progressive People (UPP)
UPND Alliance Alliance