LASTING SOLUTIONS TO ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES – OUR VIEW
As we have stated before, the lasting solution to Zambia’s economic difficulties does not lie in the IMF.
The solution lies in the collection of fair and adequate revenue from the mining sector for support to secondary industries such as manufacturing.
It lies in increased state support to agriculture and enhanced food security, but those in power today are quick to export maize, quicker to listen to the IMF and remove subsidies on farming inputs even when the US and other Western countries still subsidise their own agriculture industry.
It lies in the development of the arts, a hugely important industry that those in power today have reduced to a footnote in a ministry.
It lies in increased state investment to social sectors such as education and health.
The current free education up to Grade 12 is not enough. In fact, if we go back to history, it is a racist colonial policy that was formulated on the premise that Africans only need basic or elementary education, not higher education.
As the Socialist Party, by investment in education:
We mean free education up to university level because no country in the world has ever developed using primary or secondary school graduates.
We mean adequate funding to public universities to enable them function without disruptions, to afford our researchers the necessary funds they require to conduct research in social sciences and to support their scientific discoveries and technological advances.
We mean the provision of students’ living or meal allowances so that they can learn on full stomachs as opposed to the distractions caused by not knowing where their next meal will come from.
We have some of the most brilliant scientists in this country at UNZA, CBU and other public universities whose talents are going to waste because of lack of state support towards their research activities.
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party