Admit debt crisis, M’membe advises govt
By Staff Reporter
Socialist Party 2021 presidential candidate Fred M’mermbe has advised government to admit that there is a debt crisis in the country and to take measures to restore confidence in the economy.
Last week, Fitch Rating Agency downgraded Zambia’s credit rating to B- thereby relegating the country to junk status.
Addressing journalists on the latest Fitch rating at his office in Lusaka’s Garden compound on Monday, Dr M’membe who is also the party’s Deputy General Secretary said arrogance from the government would not solve the problem.
He outlined some of measures that can help to restore confidence of the citizens and the international financial markets.
‘’Our advice is: (1) Admit there’s a crisis. (2) Try to restore the confidence of the financial markets. (3) Build some consensus around the debt situation in the country so that all sectors of our society are mobilised to deal with this issue. To do that the government needs to start moving on cutting costs. There has to be a reversal of certain policies or decisions that they have made; they have to reverse them. It can’t be business as usual, they just can’t keep on going as if nothing has happened, no!” he said.
‘’There has to be a reversal of certain decisions that have been made. There has to be a change in the way we live, the way we govern, the way we manage the affairs of our country. (1) The salaries they have given themselves they have to reverse them. The increment in the salary of the President and other Constitutional office holders has to be reversed. (2) There has to be a 50/60 per cent cut in travel expenses. They just don’t have a choice, they have to cut that.’’
He said for a long time now those governing the country had denied having borrowed heavily, but that everything was clear now.
‘’Comrades, the first step in solving a problem is in its admission. For some time, the leadership of this country has denied it has got a problem. It has denied openly it has a debt problem. The leadership of this country has even gone against advice to stop borrowing,’’ he explained further.
‘’The highest leadership of this country said they’re going to continue borrowing; they’re not going to stop borrowing. When the general public was telling them ‘stop borrowing’ the leadership of this country vowed to continue borrowing. I don’t know whether that is a product of ignorance, arrogance or something else.’’
He said the government had no option but to stop borrowing and take measures that will restore confidence of the Zambian people and international financial markets.
Dr M’membe further called for a cancellation of unnecessary government transactions.
‘’They have to reduce the transport costs of government. The automobiles they’re buying, the orders have to be cancelled. The maintenance of government vehicles, a cheaper way that is more efficient, more effective, more orderly has to be found. The plans to buy new jets and other gadgets, unnecessary military expenditure that we are reading about, that has to stop; it has to stop,’’ he said.
‘’We know they have got difficulties stopping expenditure because when they stop expenditure they can’t steal; their pockets will run dry. Part of this debt that we are battling with today is born out of greed. For them to steal they have to have projects, they have to have contracts, they have to have things going on so that they scheme some money out of that. And they don’t care where they leave the country.’’
And Dr M’membe warned that it was the workers that would have to pay the debt.
He said there was nowhere in the world where the government had capacity to pay debt without squeezing the working class.
“You have heard for yourselves where we are as a country. It’s clear we have a crisis, and not a small crisis but a gigantic crisis. Any crisis needs ideas, it needs new ideas. It’s not ideas that create crises. This crisis has not been created by the ideas we are articulating. What we are saying is not going to exacerbate or worsen the crisis we are in. Crises are not created by ideas, but it’s crises that generate ideas,’’ said Dr M’membe.
‘’Comrades, this is not about cheap politics, this is about the livelihoods of our people. If we don’t deal with the debt issue correctly forget about a reversal in the economic fortunes of this country; we won’t see it. Let’s think about the poor first, they are the majority in this country. If democracy is about the majority then let the interests of the working class prevail. Let the interests of the poor peasants prevail and take precedence.’’
Earlier, the party’s General Secretary Dr Cosmas Musumali gave a back ground to how the country’s first debt crisis started in the 1970s most of it was written off in the 2000s.
Dr Musumali wondered why the government decided to over borrow after coming out of such a desperate situation.
He further advised the government to cut unnecessary expenditure, among other things.
