RESPONSE TO NEVERS MUMBA’S CLAIMS THAT THE PATRIOTIC FRONT LEFT A DAMAGED ECONOMY
UPND HAS MERELY FAILED TO RUN THE ECONOMY
By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
MMD President, Dr. Nevers Mumba has joined the UPND in claiming that the Patriotic Front left a damaged economy and are therefore responsible for the current economic crisis.
Mumba also claimed that President Hakainde Hichilema may need more than ten years to repair and restore economic success.
This lame excuse peddled by both the UPND and now Nevers Mumba is folly as it is not founded in truth or factual details of the economy. President Hakainde Hichilema and his New Dawn goverment have merely failed to run the economy because of their heavy reliance on foreign solutions and promoting multinational interests.
To the contrary, the economy was so resilient that even with the twin challenges of both the debt burden and the historical shocks of pandemic, it rebounded to 4.5% growth in 2021 after recording a negative growth of 2.8% in 2020.
Let us now discuss how the Patriotic Front left the state of the economy in 2021.
● High cost of living was far lower than it is today with the basic needs and nutritional basket costing K8,259 and now it stands at K9267.34.
● Mealie-meal was K90-K120 but now it’s trading at K320.
● Fuel was at K17 but is now it’s at K30. Prices of cooking oil, sugar, and salt are all far higher than they were.
● Electricity is extremely expensive and new connection prices have risen from K700 to K7,700.00 mininum.
● Power stations such as Kafue Lower and Itezhi-itezhi with power generation capacity upgraded from 1,600 megawatts to 3,500 megawatts.
● Airports, Kenneth Kaunda International Airport and Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe Airport.
● Roads, township roads, bridges and crossing points.
● schools, colleges and universities.
● health centres, 115 mini-hospitals, 65 district hospitals and upgraded clinics in Lusaka: Chipata, Kanyama, Chilenje and Chawama to First Level Hospitals.
● established farm blocks in every province, increased FISP beneficiaries from 500,000 to 1.1 million farmers. Closely related to these investments, government built dams to encourage irrigation schemes.
●1.5 million metric tonnes of maize in FRA national strategic reserves.
ON THE DEBT
● Government conducted the debt stress test and debt analysis jointly with the IMF/World Bank and established a debt sustainability initiative(DSI).
● Following the debt sustainability analysis that established that Zambia’s debt-carrying capacity had also weakened, the country embarked on debt restructuring programme. It appointed Lazard Ferres to handle the $3billion Euro Bond. Zambia began debt restructuring talks with the People’s Republic of China.
● Government halted or suspended infrastructure projects that were at 80% completion and below.
Zambia also canceled US$1.6 billion in agreed upon but not-disbursed Chinese loans, mostly from China Exim Bank and the Industrial Commercial Bank of China.
UPND FAILURE TO RESOLVE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS
It is clear that the UPND has failed to resolve the economic crisis as their tools are foreign oriented such as the heavy reliance on IMF bail-out loans and foreig direct investment and promoting the interests of foreign multinationals.
President Hichilema has also heavily depleted domestic revenue by giving generous tax and other incentives to foreign mining companies. This action alone has robbed the country millions of dollars in tax revenue.
Further, the UPND government found KCM and Mopani Copper Mines under the ownership of Zambia under ZCCM-IH. Now, they have chosen to give away the ownership of the mines to dubious investors and bad deals.
These mines produce both copper and cobalt, critical minerals which are the major drivers behind the global energy transition and revolution. Therefore, the decision by government has robbed the country great opportunities to derive maximum benefits from its natural resources.
The UPND goverment has bungled economic sectors such as agriculture and mining which would have been to the revival of the country’s economic fortunes.
The UPND government has so far borrowed over six billion dollars but cannot show what it has done with the money. For example, in 2022 alone, as confirmed by ex World Bank President David Malpass, Zambia received 750 million dollars, the largest single disbursement to a poor country in a single year. Further, goverment has received a total of 561 million dollars from the 1.3 billion-dollar-IMF bail-out.
There is no tangible project or program that can be seen where these colosal sums have been spent on.
Issued by;
Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
Chairperson of Information and Publicity
Member of the Central Committee
PATRIOTIC FRONT
Yes it is true UPND have made the economy worse, and the cost of living a lot worse.
Hakainde has failed so far to deliver his key promises.
Unfortunately, most of what Mwamba has written is correct. His argument on the Debt situation is the only bit that is shaky. Everything else, which is like 90 percent, is accurate.
The Zambian Constitution needs a lot of amendments for our country to move forward.We should not register a political party that is practically a mouth piece for a ruling party.To me that is a scandal.An opposition party must give hope for Zambians by providing credible and effective checks and balances to the ruling party ,hence the stance and path taken by N.Mumba’s MMD to me leaves much to be desired.I do not concur with people whose motive is to fight fellow opposition parties when they have a common role to play in Zambia,to speak for the Zambians.Why is there change of direction in the manifesto ? Is it because people are so hungry that they fail to survive unless they are employed by ruling party ??Is this the purpose why a political party is formed and registered ? Reservations ….from Berlin
Only people who lack analytical skills can believe what Mr. Mwamba has written. I could have responded to all of the items he talked about but for now I will only touch issue about the mines from the list he has given of the so called achievement by his party PF and his alleged failures of UPND. He says government has given tax holidays to foreign mines which is far from the truth. It seems he does not understand what mineral royalty tax (MRT) deductibility is for him to make such a claim and I would suggest he seeks some knowledge about this issue. In addition, tax incentives are given to ALL the mines including those owned by Zambians and I would have thought he would be happy because it means the cost of running mines has been reduced to encourage more Zambians to participate in the mining sector but it seems he prefer the costs remain high such that Zambians fail to participate which contradict his claims of wanting Zambians to run mines.
And talking about KCM and Mopani mines, seriously how much have these mines contributed to the economy since the time government took over? Does he even know how bad the situation has been in the Copperbelt after government took over the running of these mines? It seems he does not know that mines are the biggest tax contributor in the country for him to make such wild claims.
Bushe bashikulu Mumba balifye Bwino. Nasakana how people loose logic. Just the headline I knew even the content is bluffing. Back to the pulpit.
It is amazing to read what.
Mwamba has just defecated.
Doesn’t Mwamba know that the high cost of living is due to overborowing and failure by his corrupt government to pay back the creditors on time. Mwamba must think before he spews trash on social media
Mwamba fails to explain the 31 billion USD debt for which we have no assets to show for this massive liability. Irresponsible, illegal chasing of vendata, which company would have easily lost and exited under arbitration. Mopani scandalous deal with Glencore. The collapse of Ndola lime whilst enriching liquidators administrator. The same sinister plan they had for KCM.The debt and losses in copper production are now hitting the exchange rate hard. PF government was a curse. It was and still is a criminal enterprise.
Only blind minded person’s can support PF a party that as brought these encounters of economy disaster because of over borrowing which they failed to service I, don’t know how people understand this things the economical damage was huge so, when UPND took over the first thing they did is to start cleaning the dirty to put things in order that’s why you have seen in just two years in government pensioners, council workers, being paid service delivery employing teachers, health personal service personal so many things to talk about normality brought back I, do agree that their is more to be done and we must learn to give credit were it’s due remember Rome was not built in a day people lived in fear the country was like a dean of lion’s including ba pf president ba lubinda being beaten what a party! mean while let’s forget about PF and forge forward.