THE PRESENTED 2025 NATIONAL BUDGET BY HON .MUSOKOTWANE MINISTER OF FINANCE AND NATIONAL PLANNING MADE A GOOD ROMANTIC SPEECH
By Stanley Muba’sa, Socialist Party National Youth Spokesperson
The Socialist Party youth league did follow proceedings regarding the presentation of the 2025 National Budget by Hon. Musokotwane, Minister Of Finance And National Planning.
This is the fourth budget prepared by this administration and stood at K217.1 Billion. We took interest in the Education sector which received an allocation of K31.5 billion representing 14.5%, this amount is an increase compared to what was allocated to the sector in the 2024 budget, but a critical analysis reveals that this amount is not enough to reduce the Teacher-Pupil ratio which remains problematic, lack of enough class rooms, lack of teaching essentials like chokes, makers, rulers, blackboards, desks plain papers and main others, while free education is a policy traditionally advocated for by Socialists across the globe, we find the one implemented by the UPND administration to be falling short of critical components thereby affecting the quality of education. Just how can pupils learn when a class room with the capacity of accommodating about 40, ends up having 100 plus? Where pupils are packed like goats destined for Kasumbalesa! It is because of the poor and bad quality of education that President Hichilema, Hon Musokotwane and the rest in the cabinet refuse to take their sons and daughters to government schools! If the quality of education was not compromised, they would have been in the forefront taking theirs children to government schools. The Socialist Party in government will allocate 25% of the budget to address the current poorly implemented Free Education Policy.
The Health sector important as it is, has been the backbone of corruption in this administration causing serious grave consequences like the traditional lack and insufficient of drugs in hospitals,clinics and all health posts across the nation. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there should be above 70% of drugs and medical supplies in hospitals, unfortunately Zambia had below 55% as revealed by a parliamentary committee on Health. To allocate K23.2 billion representing 10.7% of the budget is suicidal, especially that the availability of drugs in hospitals remains a big issue with patients receiving prescription to buy from pharmacies. Currently our hospitals are just providing more of mortuary services, they are just storage facilities for our dead relatives who die due to lack of medicines in hospitals. The budget on health is a killing budget! The Socialist Party Youth League is of the view that once in power, 20% of the budget will be allocated to this life serving sector, to recruit more Doctors and other health experts. The “Mickey Mouse” drama set up by Hon. Masebo deserves punishment for the chaos she caused in the procurement of drugs and her alleged corruption in the process.
And finally, the Agriculture sector which plays a critical role in food security had K9.3 billion budgeted for Farmer Input Support Program – FISP. We expected a well thought plan like putting a lot of money in this sector since it is a source of livelihood for our over 1.2 million peasant farmers in rural areas,these are the farmers that feed the entire Nation, we expected deliberate policies to build and support locally owned fertilizer manufacturing induatries with incentives given by government to promote local entrepreneurs to venture into this sector. When the production of fertilizer is localized other expenditures associated with importing are done away with.
We have been proposing for massive training of Agriculture experts and research institutions to help with informed methods of farming, where government deploys many Agriculture extension officers among others in farming regions to help increase production for food security, but this administration has shown no direction towards intentional revamping of this sector.
This administration should not blame climate change when hunger and poverty hits the roof top, on several occasions we have provided solutions to current issues, but this government is one that is controlled by it’s foreign funders as seen in the policies implemented which prioritize foreigners at the expense of Zambians.
Sadly, the presented budget was a romantic speech meant to excite the masses, it was a populist document, that lacked practical means of responding to the current high cost of living, loadshedding, poor and bad education system which is ill-funded, with no hope for Zambians to own and control the means of production, no fair share of taxes from the mines.
Simply put, the minister wasted ink and plain papers to draft his budget, his document is fit for the dustbins.