By Kombe Mataka
FORMER Lusaka Province minister Bowman Lusambo says he is writing back to IMF to acknowledge the Fund’s response to his letter and challenge them to disclose the contents of the IMF bailout programme for Zambia.
The IMF chief of delegation to Zambia Holland Alison has written back to Lusambo advising him to read the published contents of the IMF programme for Zambia staff level agreement which is in public domain.
“(IMF) they know that Zambians won’t agree with the contents that are in that agreement. That is why they are failing to give us the full information based on the agreement they have with the government. The same IMF is trying to challenge the lenders like China that ‘you have to come and give full disclosure of the loans you have with Zambia’ but they have failed to disclose the simple information I asked for,” he said.
“So far, us, we will call them hypocrites because what they are telling me it’s not different from what they want to get from China. For me, I am writing back to them to firstly acknowledge receipt of the letter and insist that there should be disclosure of the IMF deal.”
Lusambo said he would also invite the IMF to show the institution the aftermath of the 1990’s IMF programme in Zambia.
“We want to show them the effects of aftermath of IMF. The situation we have in our country right now. It is not politics. We want to understand the real contents of the agreement because the aftermath is there for everyone to see. It was a flop. It is misery. We have more street kids on our roads. We have more unplanned settlements, shanty compounds. A lot of bad memories. IMF has never worked in our country. If they care why didn’t they just tell us to invest in farming, fish farming and forestry for you to come out of the financial problem,” he said.
“But those are business people that is why I call them witches. They know that what they are doing will kill the people of Zambia but they don’t care. All they care about is the benefit they are getting. This is the same IMF that wanted to buy all the mines in Zambia as a single unit until (president Frederick) Chiluba put his foot down and told then finance minister Edith Nawakwi that ‘we should not privatise the mines as a single unit’. So how can we trust them today?”
Lusambo said his fight against the IMF package was not political but in the interest of Zambians.
“It is not my fight. It is the fight for Zambians. So my appeal to Zambians is let us stand up and be counted,” said Lusambo.