KATELE KALUMBA’S WIFE WRITES👇
Why Zambia’s Money sitting in Banks outside Zambia Doesn’t Help Us Here
A story your grandma in the village can follow
Imagine your grandma keeps K500 under her mattress. She saved it carefully. You are proud of her.
But here is what you don’t know. She borrowed K200 from Mama Chanda next door. She owes K150 to the teacher for school fees. The clinic is waiting for K100 she promised last month. And she hasn’t paid the man who fixed her roof — K80 still outstanding.
Her K500 exists. But she owes more than she has.
Is she doing well? No. She is in trouble.
That is exactly what is happening with Zambia’s money.
The government says: “We have $6.5 billion saved in banks in Switzerland. We are doing well.”
But let us count what we owe.
The government has not paid the people who supplied it with goods and services — building materials, medicines, food, equipment. That unpaid bill grew from K18 billion in 2021 to K96 billion today. K78 billion that ordinary Zambian business people are still waiting to be paid.
On top of that, government borrowed more through bonds and Treasury Bills. Another K181 billion. Foreign debt went up by $4.5 billion.
Total new borrowing in five years: roughly $18 billion.
Total new savings in five years: $3.5 billion.
You borrowed K18 to save K3.50. That is not saving. That is digging a deeper hole and painting the top green.
And here is the part that stings.
That $6.5 billion sits in banks in foreign countries. The foreign investors borrow that money cheaply and build factories, create jobs, grow businesses.
Meanwhile, a young man in Kafue with a good idea cannot get a loan. A woman in Choma with a small farm cannot afford the interest rate. A contractor in Kitwe who built a government school three years ago is still waiting to be paid.
Our money is working. Just not for us.
What should happen instead?
Take a portion of those reserves – say $3 billion – and put it into a local bank that lends cheaply to Zambian farmers, traders, and builders. Let Zambian people borrow it. Let Zambian businesses grow with it. Let the jobs it creates be Zambian jobs.
The short version for you to explain to your grandma:
Kuku, the government is showing us money in their left hand. But look at what the right hand owes — it is far more. And the money in the left hand? It is working for Foreigners, not for us.
That is the truth of Zambia’s $6.
What rubbish analogy. Even us laymen know that even rich countries like USA owe trillions and are in deficit but still keep reserves. Anyway, our learned colleagues who understand finance and economics have already eloquently explained, so we are not bothered. This is how exactly the PF got the country into debt and defaulted. The Katele Kalumba’s wife mentality.