ANDREW Banda says the exchange rate will automatically improve once UPND forms government because investors have confidence in Hakainde Hichilema.
Featuring on Smooth FM’s Forum programme recently, Banda boasted that the UPND government would be different from the current PF government.
“This country is wasting a lot of money in less important things instead of putting money into production. As UPND if we form government, we are going to do things differently. The first thing starts with leadership, the day there will be a change of government in this country and for instance when HH goes in [State House], believe me you, we’ll see how much confidence will have in this country. All of a sudden even the exchange rate will improve because of the confidence that the investors have in him,” he said.
Andrew said Zambia was renowned for not paying back debt and that no one wants to lend Zambia money.
He said he was confident that Hichilema was the right person to lead Zambia.
“Here is a villager from Bweengwa and when he came to University of Zambia, he didn’t even have shoes, he started wearing shoes in Lusaka. God gave it to him, he runs his own affairs, he is a God-fearing man, he is a man who doesn’t drink, here is a man who doesn’t socialise unnecessarily. To put it in simple terms, HH is a living example of how a leader should be,” Andrew said.
He said the UPND once in government would renegotiate debt repayment.
Andrew also said UPND would respect public money.
Asked what UPND would do to close the gap between the rich and poor, Andrew said the UPND would have zero tolerance to corruption.
“First of all, it starts with the citizens themselves; you know the tragedy of our country, we even salute people that have stolen money from us. You will find that in the same environment other people find money while others fail because there is a very small clique that has held this whole economy captive. The first thing we are going to do is to invest in education. When you invest in education, you will produce engineers, doctors, agriculturists, pharmacists and many others. You produce all kinds of professionals and that’s what grows an economy,” he said.
Andrew said Hichilema was one of the examples of people that were educated by the State.
“There are so many people that benefited from free education provided by Dr Kenneth Kaunda’s government. For us, how we are going to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor; we’ll first of all have zero tolerance to corruption, then we’ll increase production in every industry. We’re also going to take advice even from those opposing us,” he said.
Andrew said the UPND would create opportunities for all the citizens.
“We are going to set up financial institutions that will look at the youths because we know that we should army the youths with skills through education. Marketeers should have facilities where they could borrow with low interest rates. We are not going to borrow money from kaloba with hundred percent interest rates,” said Andrew.