Investment Pledges, Why Don’t they Actualise?
By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
Both Minister of Science and Technology, Felix Mutati and State House Special Assistant for Economics, Jito Kayumba,have excitedly announced that Zambia has received investment pledges of $3billion.
To the uninitiated, this appears to be a point of celebration of some perceived economic success. Yet these pledges are made and announced every year and few result into actual investments and projects.
At the height of the pandemic and in 2020, ZDA Board Chairperson DAVID MASUPA announced that Zambia recorded $5.8-billion-dollar projected investments.
In 2019, President Hakainde Hichilema, in Opposition, announced investment pledges made to him by USA investors amounting to $25billion. Mr Hichilema announced this after speaking in Washington DC at the Woodrow Wilson Centre.
Similarly, I was surprised to hear an announcement attributed to Anheuser-Busch InBev, the World’s largest brewer that owns Zambia Breweries that because of New Dawn Government policies and favourable investment climate, the conglomerate will invest $80million in their business in Lusaka.
Someone forgot that they had made the $80million announcement in 2019 to invest and double capacity at Zambia Breweries Lusaka plant and increase the support of cassava cultivation by small-holder farmers.
My point is that investment pledges are made every year….wonder why no one follows up on the actualization….but you can understand why politicians clutch at the perceived good news of straws like a drowning man.