FOREIGN RESERVES BUILT ON THE BACKS OF STARVING FARMERS ARE NOT AN ACHIEVEMENT
It is both tragic and morally indefensible that Mr Hakainde Hichilema’s government can publicly boast about holding a mere USD 5 billion in foreign reserves while thousands of Zambian farmers remain unpaid for maize they supplied to the state. This is not economic prudence. It is cruelty disguised as fiscal discipline.
A government that takes maize from farmers, sells part of it, benefits from the proceeds, and then withholds payment is not managing an economy. It is exploiting its own citizens. Who does that to the very people who feed the nation? What moral justification exists for celebrating reserves while farmers cannot pay for their farming inputs, service loans, or even prepare adequately for the next farming season?
Let us be clear. The money sitting in those so-called reserves does not belong to Mr Hichilema or the UPND government. It belongs to Zambian farmers. It is the sweat of rural households, the dignity of men and women who trusted the state in good faith. Any reserve built on unpaid obligations is not a reserve. It is stolen time, stolen labour, and stolen hope.
The consequences of this insensitivity will not be abstract. They will be real and devastating. Farmers who are not paid today will not plant tomorrow. Reduced planting this season means food shortages next year and the year after. It means higher mealie meal prices. It means hunger. It means instability. No amount of praise from Western embassies or international financial institutions will fill empty granaries.
Mr Hichilema appears more eager to impress the West than to protect the livelihoods of his own people. This obsession with external approval has produced a dangerous policy mindset where pleasing creditors and donors take precedence over paying farmers and safeguarding food security. The Zambia government does not exist to validate foreign economic theories. It exists to serve Zambians.
A government that claims to be pro-poor cannot build its macroeconomic narrative on the suffering of small-scale farmers. You cannot preach discipline to a farmer who has delivered maize, waited months without payment, and watched interest on loans accumulate. You cannot lecture a rural household about patience when children are sleeping hungry.
Mr Hichilema must urgently realign his priorities. Paying farmers is not charity. It is a contractual and moral obligation. It is also a strategic necessity for national food security. If the UPND government truly believes in economic justice, then it must immediately retrieve and redirect those funds to clear arrears owed to farmers.
Zambia will not be developed by press statements about reserves. It will be developed by honouring commitments, protecting producers, and placing the poor at the centre of economic policy. Anything less is betrayal.
History will not remember how loudly the UPND government boasted about reserves. It will remember whether farmers were paid, whether fields were planted, and whether children had food on the table. On that score, the current trajectory is alarming and unacceptable.
Fred M’membe
Socialist Party president and People’s Pact presidential candidate
You seem to be already excited after being verbally appointed as flag bearer for people’s pact in the 2026 general elections. Not all farmers supplied or sold Maize to FRA but all farmers got their Inputs through FISP. And it’s not all the farmers but some are not yet paid and these the one to be cleared by 10th January, 2026. So you are celebrating on an already solved problem. Even your heading is very misleading; in Zambia we don’t have foreign reserves built on backs of starving farmers, we only have FOREIGN RESERVES built on hard working of our president and prudent management of our resources. To you it looks small but to us who are seeing it now compared to looted empty treasury in 2021, it’s a very great achievement. Just stay with your jealous, we already know you.
Dishonest chap, this is why you can’t gain votes because of hate. You will do the same, say if you were in power, but you won’t because I don’t see any meaningful votes towards you
Yes, riches built on the backs of unpaid Journalists, and unpaid taxes are not true riches!
Ba Dr. M’membe, ati “a mere US$5 billion. You trivialise such like it was mere change? During g the whole time PF were in power, we never had such levels of reserves and you have the cheek to cheapen this achievement?
Dr. M’membe, learn to give credit where it is due. It is a sign of mature leadership.
Do these id!0ts like Mmembe even attempt to read the feedback they are given by Zambians?
I don’t think so, no wonder they keep dishing out nonsense. Unbelievable !!!
I sometimes think that maybe it’s not them writing, coz if it’s them uuuuum there is a lot of foolishness in them because they can’t tell me that that is how they run their houses(just because you have cash in the house you buy meat even when there is an option to buy a live cow that will give birth to more cattle for more meat). How much was he paying workers The Post while he was expanding the company?
2026 is finally here. In August even Sean Tembo, with his unbeaten record of zero votes, will do much better than you M’membe. Nipano tuli!
Who would listen to a man who tried to defraud the people of Zambia through tax fraud? A dishonest man who thought not paying taxes on which public services are funded, was being smart or shrude? And today the tax dodger wants to lead Zambia? Using the same misleading ideas he used to evade paying taxes?
Now this is a man who wants to lead us yet doesn’t understand why we should have cash in the reserve. A credit rating is like a financial reputation score for a country.When ratings and cash in the reserve improves,all business sectors expand.Money became expensive to borrow without anything in your reserve Membe.Once confidence returns, pressure on prices eases gradually.Zambia has restored fiscal discipline Membe.Forget about this presidency story sir,you cant make it.