YOU CANNOT PRINT A NATION INTO PROSPERITY
Under kaponyanomics, there was a time when many people believed that government could simply solve every problem by throwing more cash into the economy. The louder the demand, the more money was expected to appear. The Bank of Zambia was treated by some as though it were a machine that could produce unlimited wealth.
Money itself is not wealth. Wealth is created by farmers producing more food, miners exporting more minerals, factories manufacturing goods, entrepreneurs creating businesses, and workers increasing productivity. When more money chases the same amount of goods and services, prices rise, the currency weakens, and ordinary families become poorer. That is basic economics.
Many Zambians will remember the widely circulated audio in which a senior PF official appeared to pressure the Governor of the Bank of Zambia over money. Whether one agrees with every interpretation of that recording or not, it reflected a dangerous mindset that prosperity can be manufactured by creating more cash instead of creating more production. Zambia reached a stage whereby directing BoZ to simply print the money was a solution.
That is why restoring fiscal discipline, strengthening the independence of the Bank of Zambia, rebuilding foreign exchange reserves, and restoring confidence in the economy matter. A strong economy is built through production, investment, exports and responsible public finances and not by treating the printing press as an economic policy.
Zambia has paid a heavy price for economic shortcuts before. We must never return to the illusion that a nation can print its way to prosperity. Real wealth is created in the field, in the factory, in the mine, in the workshop and in the marketplace and not at the printing press.
Saviour Chishimba
President
United Progressive People (UPP)
UPND Alliance Partner