Golden Party of Zambia, (GPZ) president – Jackson Silavwe says government’s overpriced public projects have locked citizens in a poverty trap.
Silavwe tells Byta FM News that his party appreciates the need for infrastructure development to help growth, but argues that the projects have come at a high cost.
He adds that Zambia has borrowed more for less and is now offloading a huge part of the national budget to service foreign and domestic debt at the expense of service delivery to citizens.
“It is not a coincidence that now we have rulling party ministers and cadres flashing out huge sums of money to the people when the Government itself is portraying to be broke and in IMF bailout talks,” added Silavwe.
Silavwe argues that the effects can be seen from unemployed teachers and nurses, in addition to hospitals without essential medicines, thereby rendering infrastructure development valueless.
He says history has shown us that Zambia cannot truly prosper on borrowed money.
“In simple terms, it means that if Zambia’s budget is K100, over K75 is being spent on debt servicing and only K25 is what we are using to pay workers in Government, buy medicine in hospitals among other things. This a vicious poverty trap,” he added.
Silavwe proposes a deliberate economic investment plan targeting Zambians with A Venture Capital Fund to directly invest in HIGH QUALITY STARTUPS across all the sectors of the economy.
He says this will translate into more revenue collection and clearing of public debt.