PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE (5Ps)

0

PROPER PREPARATION PREVENTS POOR PERFORMANCE (5Ps)

What is becoming clear is that the UPND is very poor when it comes to planning ahead of time. This has been evidenced by late delivery of farming inputs and now we hear maize seed is in short supply, two supplementary budget requests to Parliament in 2024, poor execution procedures for CDF and just yesterday amendment to an already approved borrowing plan from concession to commercial borrowing. This is indeed sad when you have a Minister of Finance who has served in numerous prestigious positions to have such lapses.



Fast forward, we have heard that Zambezi River Authority has allocated 24 billion litres of water to both Zambia and Zimbabwe for 2025 power generation. Kindly explain in layman’s language how much megawatts of power we are going to generate in 2025. Will this allocation end load shedding? If not, inform the nation upfront what the load shedding outlook is for 2025 so that citizens and businesses can plan ahead of time.



The current load shedding is now a total disaster such that one can only sit and guess what time power will be available. The load shedding schedules seem completely discarded.

So, to aid planning ahead of 2025, provide the following:
1. How much power will be generated from hydro in 2025.
2. ⁠Is the power generation sufficient to end load shedding in 2025? We think the answer is categorical NO.
3. ⁠If the power generation is not sufficient to end load shedding, how many hours of load shedding per day should we expect?
4. ⁠To alleviate further suffering by our citizens, have we put measures in place to import power to close the demand deficit?
5. ⁠How much power are we going to import and from where?


6. ⁠To avoid an abrupt increase in tariffs under the pretext of “emergency tariffs adjustments” as was the case this year, what tarrifs rates should consumers expect? Same as current tarrifs or a further upwards adjustment!

We also request the Ministry of Finance and National Planning to go through similar steps in re-looking at the funding needs/plan to ensure its cast in stone and avoid regular visits to Parliament seeking amendments to borrowing plans and and supplementary budgets.



Since funding is mostly from government securities, ensure that there is enough headroom on the K300 billion ceiling for issuance of these securities. Otherwise, you will again be running to Parliament.

What is the current total exposure of Treasury Bills and Government Bonds in contrast to the K300 billion ceiling approved by Parliament? Is there sufficient headroom to issue these instruments without breaching the ceiling?



You also need to manage the maturity risk of foreign portfolio holding of government securities as this can have a serious impact on the exchange rate. Foreign investors tend to divest their investments when countries go to elections in emerging markets. The question is:
1. How much of our total Treasury Bills and Government Bonds are held by foreign bond holders?
2. How much of the foreign holding is maturing in 2025/2026?
3. ⁠How much international reserves do we have to offset any potential outflows upon maturity?
4. ⁠How much of the 2025 maturities is expected to be rolled over, and consequently, how much will be divested?



We are not here to belittle the government but help them manage future risks as we have seen just too many lapses.


Also, ensure parastatal companies loan repayments are communicated and approved by the Secretary to the Treasury to avoid what happened at Zesco with an erroneous $82 million payment.

Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here