Should Zambia be going to borrow to service another debt, asks Binwell
By Fanny Kalonda
NKANA Independent member of parliament Binwell Mpundu says the government’s insatiable appetite for borrowing is manifesting each year.
He charges that finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane on different platforms has failed to explain how much the country has borrowed so far.
“I do not want any day to hear our friends pointing fingers on the people on your left talking about debt when their insatiable appetite for borrowing is manifesting each and every year. They are borrowing each and every year and the minister cannot even explain… I was listening to an interview one day where he was asked how much have you borrowed, he couldn’t even state. Dishonesty of the highest kind!” Mpundu said when he debated the motion to adopt the report of the planning and budgeting committee on the consideration of the 2024 annual borrowing plan. “There’s nothing sinister about borrowing and certainly when a country borrows, like Zambia, there’s nothing sinister. I want to believe that there’s nothing wrong in honourable Musokotwane coming to this House to ask us to support his intentions to borrow. Madam Speaker, when I listened to our colleagues seated on the right, they strike me as very intelligent people especially when they castigate the people sitting on your left (opposition) because of their insatiable appetite to borrow in the previous administration. They strike me as people who have solutions, who will never take us… Madam Speaker, these days every other conversation we’ve had about well-being of this country has unfortunately been reduced to a debate on issues of debt – ‘no you are seated on the left you have no right to speak because you borrowed’.”
He said he would have hoped that people who appeared to have solutions would never ask parliament to support them to borrow.
“I would have hoped that our colleagues who strike me as people who have solutions would never ask this House to support them to borrow. Strange enough, Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance comes to us to ask us to support him to borrow to go and service a debt. Madam Speaker, why do people borrow? People borrow when they don’t have and that is why I said in my preamble, borrowing is not wrong. People borrow when they don’t have. The question I always ask myself, doesn’t Zambia have enough that we must continue to borrow? Should Zambia be going to borrow to go and service another debt? If the Minister of Finance had come to this House to suggest that we support him to borrow to go and invest in harnessing a low hanging fruit in the mining sector, Madam Speaker, I would not have hesitated to support him because that would have given us revenues to pay. Madam Speaker, we are a country sadly enough that would line up intelligent people to go and celebrate debt restructuring. Madam Speaker, this is where we are now intelligent people dressed in suits asking themselves to borrow to go and service another debt,” he said. “Doesn’t that sound strange to all of us? It’s very strange to me Madam Speaker, to borrow a debt to go and service another date. It bothers me a lot. Madam Speaker, that is why today I’m very conflicted. Madam Speaker, this is what I would have expected this government, a minister goes and makes a decision to allow $2.5 billion to fly out to Panama from the FQM (First Quantum Minerals), then the case that was before the police, the minister decides to wash that case away. We lose $2.5 billion. Can we imagine what that $2.5 billion would have done to what we are dealing with today? Would the minister have come to borrow here? Certainly not Madam Speaker.
The Ministry of Finance, there is a mining company that was owing $1 billion in taxes, the ministry makes a sweeping decision to only allow them to pay a meager $23 million. Madam Speaker, are we okay to be making those decisions? Are we certainly okay that we can now come and say let’s borrow?”
Mpundu said it is unacceptable for the government to forgo a lot of money only to ask parliament to support its borrowing.
“When we are allowing all that money to … We do understand when there’s a report of FIC (Financial Intelligence Centre), it is as a result of such reckless decisions where we are allowing monies to just go like that Madam Speaker. Are we a country that should continue to sit dressed up in suits to be discussing how we should borrow to go and service a debt? I am extremely ashamed Madam Speaker. I am extremely bothered, I’m extremely baffled that we must be sitting here to be supporting the Minister of Finance who is letting go of huge sums of money only to come and ask us to come and support him to borrow to go and service another borrowing. Madam Speaker that is unacceptable,” said Mpundu. “For the very first time Madam Speaker I want to confess that I am extremely bothered. Madam Speaker, I am bothered that the whole lot of us seated here, we set off from our homes dressed up in good suits just to come and discuss this item. The Minister of Finance is asking us to support his intention to add more debt on what he had already borrowed for 2024. That is what we are basically doing. It’s an addition to the debt that he had already asked us to borrow. Madam Speaker, there’s nothing sinister in borrowing at a personal level, at a household level, at a business level and certainly there’s nothing sinister for a country to borrow.”
