It’s a lie, IMF programme is not homegrown – Musumali

By Fanny Kalonda

SOCIALIST Party general secretary Cosmas Musumali says the UPND government was arrogant when they came into power and ignored the Chinese completely who have real money to help restructure the economy.


He says it is not possible that the IMF deal is a homegrown programme adding that the Fund dictates the conditions and government was told to say it was homegrown because that was what is saleable to people.


Dr Musumali said the ideological biasness of the UPND government towards the West, “did cost us time and credibility also in the eyes of the biggest creditor that we have or lender that we have.”


“So they are looking for quick solution and the quick solution is the IMF. What does the IMF do? The IMF basically mobilises the other lenders and the IMF is the one that the Western countries look up to once you strike a deal with them. They will come to your side. And that is what is going to happen to Zambia with the IMF of coming in. There may be some bit of FDI, foreign direct investment, getting into Zambia. There may be some debt forgiveness coming in from the Western countries. But the biggest lender today is not just the Western countries. Western countries are also in a dire crisis. US, Europe that is not where the real money is. The real money is in China. So if you want to restructure your debt, the first person, the first country you rush to is China. They didn’t do that. It was an afterthought. If anything, it was the IMF, World Bank that actually encouraged government to also talk to the Chinese,” he said. “Our government was arrogant when they came into power. They ignored the Chinese completely. It was only months later that they started getting back to them. And at that point, I think give credit to the Chinese, they welcomed us. They have taken the leadership in terms of putting everyone on the table and they are ready to do some debt forgiveness or some restructuring. If anybody told you today that they know the exact amount of Zambian debt as of today, they will be lying to you. They would be lying to you. There’s a disconnect amongst the different government agencies. And debt management entails that you bring all this together, you monitor it in real time. Given the latest technology, digital technology, you are able to do that…And my advice to the current government is listen to this advice, pay attention to the details. You will do better than the previous government.”


Speaking when he featured on the Hot Seat programme on Thursday, Dr Musumali said what is happening today is something that the MMD did.


“That language was also the one that MMD used in 1991. That’s the language the MMD used in 1995. That is the language the PF used. So that language is what is cut already by the World Bank and IMF. Why homegrown? Homegrown is because it politically is more saleable. You cannot say this is an IMF programme. If you do that then people say you’re an appendage. You are a colonial subject. So to avoid that you tell your people, this is a homegrown programme. [But] it is a lie. You don’t go to the IMF with your homegrown programme and then they say ‘we’re going to give you money based on that homegrown programme’. They have certain standards. They have certain expectations. And the people that are running this economy today some of them have worked for the IMF,” he noted. “We have advisors from the IMF, people that tell them do 1,2,3,4. If you do 1,2,3,4 and call it your programme, then things will move. And that’s what happens. And it is not just in Zambia by the way. That’s what happens in all these developed and the developing countries. There’s nothing like a homegrown programme. The homegrown programme would have been the one that said mineral royalties are going to be a source of income for us. The homegrown programme would have been the one that says let’s talk differently to China today. Let’s get cheaper amounts that are coming in more or less as a grant and help us refinance the more expensive Eurobonds. But what is happening today is something that the MMD did. And no wonder that the ministers that are running the show are from the MMD. It didn’t work for Zambia and will never work for any country.”


Dr Musumali wondered why a government that is new and knows that the country is in a debt trap highly gave mining firms royalties.
“In the UPND, they also would have done it very, very differently. One is the mineral royalties. That’s one of the first action that they took. They just gave it away to multinationals. But $430 million dollars per annum [from the IMF] is very little compared to the billions that we have given up on mineral royalties at the time that the copper prices are going up. The copper prices have never been this high. So Zambian people are missing out in terms of the proceeds, in terms of the benefits from the wealth,” he said. “Why would a government that is new, that knows that there’s a debt trap…it needs the money, but at the same time decides to give a waiver to multinationals because you have a government that is pro-multinationals. They are blinded by that. And because of that, they don’t see anything wrong in going to the lender of last resort. That’s one issue.”


Dr Musumali said there was no need “even to go to the IMF had we done our work properly”.
“Had we focused on the internal solutions using mineral royalties. The second issue that you look at is the nature of your debt. How did we come to the state, what is it exactly that led the previous government to accumulate so much debt? And again, you work on the systems. Systems that prevent you from falling into the same trap. And we advised the UPND government, ‘quickly work out those systems, quickly work out the legal, constraining factors, get parliament approval that make it very difficult for the Executive to borrow recklessly’. They have not done that yet and I am not sure that they’re going to do it,” he said.


Meanwhile, Dr Musumali has advised the UPND against revenging what they went through because of the Electoral Commission of Zambia when they were in opposition.


He said what is killing the ECZ is political interference.
“So we stand in a situation where there is utter confusion. But this confusion is systematic. It’s meant to bar two people from standing. If we allow that today, it’s [Joseph] Malanji and [Bowman] Lusambo, tomorrow is going to be somebody else. So let’s have a bit of clarity. Let’s have fairness and justice in the way we handle our issues in Zambia. And we are missing that greatly. ECZ rushed, it rushed to make a decision. It’s a tricky situation that we find ourselves in. What is ECZ going to do now? They hurried, the ConCourt is saying now…There was no fairness in it in the ruling. So what is going to be the response of the ECZ? This is where we say the ECZ is working according to political whims of those that are in power. Because if they were working professionally, most likely their decision would have been very different,” said Dr Musumali. “…We shouldn’t throw away ECZ because we need it. But what we should do is try to improve the professionalism in the ECZ. What is killing the ECZ is the political interference and we suspect in this hurriedly made decisions and tragic decision that was meant that they were working under due political interference. We suspect political interference. The UPND was actually unduly affected. The UPND suffered quite a lot under some of the decisions that were made by the ECZ and that is an open secret. But you don’t revenge. You don’t come into power with anger. That anger because you don’t like the people in the ECZ or the ECZ as an institution. There was need to start dialoguing to start getting the people in the ECZ to work in a different way. And the political interference from whatever angle it comes, makes professionalism impossible. And that’s what we’re seeing in the ECZ.”

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