By Patson Chilemba
Any increment in the price of electricity and fuel will only weaken this ailing economy further, former commerce minister Bob Sichinga has urged.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Sichinga said he will take the UPND administration by their word that it is not their agenda to increase the electricity and fuel prices, going by the statement given by Vice-President Mutale Nalumango, despite the contradiction from presidential spokesperson Anthony Bwalya.
“Any increase cannot promote production. It will just reduce production. Secondly, you are trying to revive the economy, when you say value added it means increasing production. How are you going to do so without power? How are you going to attract investment?” Sichinga said. “It’s the same as increasing the repo rate by the Bank of Zambia. It makes borrowing very expensive. Anything that involves increased prices is going to increase inflation…I totally disagree with any increment. All you are doing is you are killing industry.”
Sichinga said the government must categorically state their position on the matter, saying if they were being advised by anyone to increase the prices they were being misadvised.
On placing INDENI petroleum refinery on care and maintenance, Sichinga said he had not seen any figures where the government had come out to show the country the calculations they had done that refining fuel at Indeni is expensive as opposed to importing finished products.
He said he understood the statement by Finance minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane that it did not make sense to bring fuel in, process it and send it to Nakonde, to mean that he was implying building a refinery in Nakande.
“Now what happens to people in Livingstone?” Sichinga asked, saying Ndola was settled on as a central place and as a provincial capital of concentrated mining. “And the other issue is are you selling Indeni as a scrap metal? Is that what your plan is? Because to put it on are and maintenance means it is doing nothing.”
Sichinga condemned the carelessness of former president Edgar Lungu which he said was more focused on serving self and not the interests of the country as the reason why the country was in such a mess. He said there were laws governing how a president should operate, but “not in the behaviour of Lungu.”
