BY GEORGE N MTONGA
Giving our people the UPND more time will destroy the country further
You claim the debt issue is fixed and yet we have only postponed $3.5bn of our debt meanwhile whereas Lungu borrows $7bn in 7 years, our man is now at $8.9bn in under 4 years.
How is this fixing a problem?
Look at our policies, we literally give tax breaks to the mines and then over tax the locals. The capital flight cannot even be controlled, FIC every 6 months is alerting the nation about $2.8bn that has left or about k60bn gone illicit transactions and you think the kwacha can survive?
Then we surrender KCM and Mopani for “free” to investors who have pumped in nearly “nothing” into the country or the economy to help stabilize the kwacha, tell me what policy have we implemented to stabilize the currency? NONE
Mealie meal prices are more than double from k126 under PF to k429 now that’s 300% largely because HH exported 1.9m tonnes of FRA reserve maize and we have to now import at high prices.
Make matters worse the state is now importing through cadres the most expensive fertilizer ever at $1407 per tonne when even the PF imported at $900. During campaigns HH rightly revealed that it’s only $250 in Dubai so why the discrepancy.
Food is 3 times the prices because of these bad decisions. Then you fail to control an electricity crisis for 2 whole years letting SMEs die and their surviving have to increase cost which affect consumers. We blamed PF for spending $100m on importing power yet that solved the problem, now we are sending $82m to China “accidentally” rather than paying for power imports to stave off disaster. What logic is this?
Then we go ahead and surrender the fuel sector to an inexperienced for business partner of the President, Mr. Shashi Patel of Agro Fuels to monopolize the sector and add huge markups.
EGGS are now double the price as 2021, Chickens, Kapenta, Beans almost tripled the prices. Someone who was getting a salary of k3000 in 2021 now needs literally a k9000 salary.