Govt’s 6.6% growth projection for 2025

By Daily Revelation Editor

Economist Dr John Musantu says the government’s projected 6.6 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth projection for 2025 is unrealistic and overly ambitious.

He argues that the economic challenges in response to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s revised growth rate projection from 2.3 percent to 1.2 percent GDP in 2024, which was previously set at 4.7 percent.

He urged the government to focus on stabilising the economy in 2025 by focussing on energy and copper production before expecting significant growth.

It is very good to be overly ambitious in life, and we can’t fault President Hakainde Hichilema and his administration for having that mindset. However, they can take a leaf from the great difficulty they have encountered in terms of fulfilling many of their campaign promises they made to the Zambian people, to moderate their outlook to national matters.

Remember, this is the same President who through his Y-C formula told Zambians that he would easily address most of their economic challenges they were facing, including removing middle men from the procurement of fuel so that the price could reduce to K12 per liter from the very high K17 it was going at. Of course, that price has since taken giant strides forward and now trading at K32 from the time he assumed office. The mealie-meal which Zambians were promised would be reduced to K50 per K25 kg from around K120 is now going at K330, with the cheapest on the market, though in limited supply, going at K230. The Kwacha which was pronounced would see a supersonic appreciation from the highs of K17 is now trading in the regions of K26.7 to US$1. There are so many examples we can point to. However, we shall leave it here for now.

Therefore, the promised 6.6 percent growth rate should be looked at from that reality, especially with the economic downturn the country is already experiencing from the 21-hours daily loadshedding which has crippled businesses to the poor yields from the previous farming season, on account of the severe droughts and the further revised growth from 2.3 percent to 1.2 percent. We know the President’s ambition to want to see that 6.6 percent economic growth rate, especially that next year will be the penultimate year before the general election in 2026, and understandably the drive to want to make an impression on the electorates. But we feel the same ambition is overly ambitious.

Of course, if he managed to work the magic, whatever magic he could muster, and peradventure managed to attain the 6.6 percent growth rate, that will be something to celebrate by every patriotic Zambian. However, reality seems to point to that not being the case. The administration is therefore urged to revise the growth targets to a bare minimum so that they don’t set the bar too high for themselves which they may fail to live up to and in the process add to the unenviable list of promises that are gathering dust on the shelves, if not in the dustbin, on account of failure to fulfil them.

And it is not a given that all the fundamentals will hold for the country to experience an upturn in its fortunes. No one can assure for instance that the rains will be sufficient enough to grow the food the nation wants and fill up the rivers necessary for power generation. And even if it rains, we all must pray that the rains will not be too heavy to cause flooding and in the process destroy people’s crops and livehoods. A lot of factors can conspire to serve up another bad meal before us. However, we are to remain optimistic that all will work out for good this time around. But even if all works out for good, the government is urged to apply a bit of modesty in their projections.