IMF wants fuel & electricity prices increased, FISIP & Social Cash transfer scrapped- Sean Tembo
“So far we have strongly advised President Hichilema against the idea of getting an IMF and putting the country on an IMF programme.
We have also strongly advised the President against making careless statements about things such as our national debt and the level of corruption to the outside world the way he did during his interview with the BBC.
Like l have said before, the reason we give this advice to the President is because we want him to succeed. It is not because we are undermining him. But despite our advice, it appears that the President is very strong-headed and incapable of listening to advice from us lesser beings.
He has made it clear that the issue of getting an IMF loan is non-negotiable despite the likely retrogressive IMF conditionalities such as employment freeze, wage freeze, privatization of parastatals such as ZESCO and Zamtel, scrapping of social welfare schemes such as Farmer Input Support Program and Social Cash Transfer and yesterday the former Minister of Finance Hon.
Bwalya Ng’andu told the nation that the IMF also wanted Government to increase the prices of fuel as well as electricity tariffs as a conditionality of getting an IMF loan.
A certain self-proclaimed “Economist” who once worked for ZNBC was arguing that the conditionalities which l had earlier listed was mere fear-mongering, so with the confirmation from the former Minister of Finance who had directly engaged the IMF, I wonder what this “Economist” would have to say.
To say that these impending IMF conditionalities are retrogressive to the nation is an understatement. You see country men and women, the only way to develop our country is to do two things; seal all tax and non-tax revenue leakages and increase domestic production.
For us to increase the productivity of our economy, the key production inputs such as electricity and fuel have to be affordable. What the IMF is asking us to do by demanding that we increase the prices of fuel and electricity is to undermine the growth potential of our economy. Already the price of electricity is too high and we are supposed to be talking about reducing it and not increasing it.
Most households now only use electricity for lighting and have gone back to charcoal for purposes of cooking and heating water, which is causing serious damage to our environment due to the cutting down of trees. Now can you imagine what the further impact to the environment will be if Bally gets his way and we go on an IMF program and we increase the price of fuel and electricity as per IMF demands? Brothers and sisters, the IMF programme is wrong at so many levels.
Let us keep our fingers crossed that President Hichilema will listen to our advice and have a change of heart on this matter. Otherwise we are doomed.