By Emmanuel Mwamba
AN NGO TO DO THE 11 ROADS AT A COST OF $3.7BILLION?
Hon. Milupi has issued a fresh statement on his facebook page.
He says the Southern Africa Business Development Forum will invest $3.7billion for the eleven roads selected under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) 2000km road package dubbed the Western Trade Facilitation Routes.
Who is Southern African Business Development Forum?
Its a small NGO founded in 2017 and registered in South Africa.
This is how it defines itself on its page;
The SABDF is a Non-Profit Company incorporated in South-Africa, working towards the continent’s integration, especially the SADC region with strategic objective of enabling the SADC countries to stimulate economic development and increase their economic growth through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) and Rural Development led expansion enabling poor smallholders to take advantage of the market opportunities.
Hon. Milupi further says this proposal was brought to the previous government and was an unsolicited bid.
He says the investor selected the roads too.
Earlier Hon. Milupi had announced that the new Council of Ministers on PPP had approved the project and a 25 year Concession on the listed 11 road projects covering over 2000km.
This disclosure brings to the fore the need to be extremely vigilant with public processes and resources.
This is a $3.7billion project, and a 25-year Concession on the charge of our road network that requires that we scrutinise this proposal closely and seek to understand the source of the money.
Further we must place stringent mechanism to ensure that if funds were secured, they would be spent on the construction of the said roads.
In my view, there are available financing institutions and established companies of good repute the Zambian government can engage to pursue public private partnerships projects.
NGOs should be kept out of the space.
