UPND’s claim that there’s money in circulation is cheap propaganda – SP
Socialist Party (SP) spokesperson Frank Bwalya says the claim by UPND that there is money in circulation is cheap propaganda.
And Bwalya says the government has not been paying contractors under the guise of auditing them. On Tuesday, UPND spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa said contrary to public sentiments, there was money in the country.
In an interview, Wednesday, Bwalya said it was cheap propaganda for UPND to claim that government was funding institutions 100 percent.
“The arrogance and insensitivity of President Hakainde Hichilema and his ministers is something that Zambians never expected. When they say in response to complaints of a reality that there is no money in circulation by saying that the government is able to pay teachers, is able to pay retirees and so on, they are in fact not responding to the concerns raised. What the people mean when they say there is no money in circulation is that they are suffering, it is very difficult to get money. For a person who sells chickens, rear chickens; broilers for argument’s sake, he is saying that they are not selling enough to buy feed in order for their business to thrive as it used to in the past, and why is this person saying there is no money in circulation? It’s because the reality is that people don’t have the money to buy as they used to buy before,” he said.
“When they say that they are funding 100 percent institutions that receive government funding including schools that are grant-aided, that is not true. It is just cheap propaganda coming from a regime that has become arrogant and insensitive to the suffering of the people. The truth of the matter is that there is no money in circulation and people are suffering. You can see even in town how people are hustling, not just street vendors but everyone is hustling because the economy is biting, and the cost of living has gone up. As the Socialist Party, we don’t agree with those statements”.
And Bwalya said government had not been paying contractors under the guise of auditing when the truth of the matter was that it didn’t have the money to pay them.
“The UPND has not been paying contractors under the guise of auditing but the truth of the matter is that they don’t have the money to pay contractors. That also is contributing to the lack of liquidity in the economy, and the people who work with these contractors are not getting paid because the contractors themselves are not getting the money from the government and it is very clear that it won’t be soon when government begins to pay these contractors under the guise of course, auditing. The raising of the statutory reserve ratio has been contributing to mopping up liquidity in the economy, the government is borrowing money from banks to pay salaries for teachers and so on. That also is contributing to mopping up liquidity in the economy,” Bwalya said.
“The government needs to fulfill their election promises to stimulate the economy, to put in place policies to lower the cost of living. As long as they continue to increase fuel to almost K30 per liter now which they found somewhere at K15 and having promised themselves that it was going to reduce. There is no way the suffering of the people is going to be alleviated because that fuel has a repo effect on almost everything. As we speak now, everyone is struggling; those civil servants they are saying they are paying every month, they have to get on a bus, if they don’t have to get on a bus, they have to put fuel in their vehicle to drop school kids and so on. So, just being able to pay civil servants is not enough to stimulate an economy and lower the cost of living”.
Meanwhile, Bwalya said people could not afford the roller meal which government was calling cheaper.
“The price of mealie meal for instance is skyrocketing, out of the reach of an ordinary Zambian. They [UPND] need to put in place policies to ensure that the price of mealie meal is stabilised. They have been saying of late that they offloaded enough maize from FRA and therefore there was no justification for the price of mealie meal to go up but that is on one side of the mouth. On the other side of the mouth, they are saying that people should in fact just abandon breakfast and go for the cheaper roller meal, and the people are saying they can’t even afford that roller meal which they themselves [government] are calling cheaper; it’s not cheap for the people”.
( News Diggers )