Reflecting about the source of Zambia’s economic woes

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GUEST ARTICLE: Reflecting about the source of Zambia’s economic woes

I have just been going into our History, looking at how we got ourselves into these economic woes.

Things went wrong from the time we nationalized the mines and other industries. Copper prices went down and our income dwindled.

To sustain the economy, we went into debt from which we never recovered until about 2006 at the time of President Levy Mwanawasa.

At the time first republican president, Dr Kenneth Kaunda was leaving office in 1991, our foreign debt burden stood at a staggering USD7 billion.

The road to recovery was rough and painful. Many of our colleagues died especially from 1992 to about 1996 due to job losses without benefits.

This is what the debt trap can do to a nation. Unfortunately, its like we never learnt from that experience. The government of Dr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu went the same route by plunging us into a foreign debt trap of another staggering 13 billion dollars or more.

In 2020, Zambia became the first country to default on its debt and that definitely meant our economic situation and credit worthiness will be negatively affected for a long time to come.

All that so called unprecedented infrastructure development was on debt. Even the so called cheap fuel motorists were enjoying was on debt.

By August 2021, the Zambian government owed oil marketing companies USD750 million for oil.

These are some of the reasons why things have become so hard now. Sadly, some gulubles are blaming the current government for our current economic woes. This is most unfortunate.

President Hakainde Hichilema has performed exceptionally well under the circumstances.

Kalemba

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