Avoid temptation of using 2026 budget as campaign tool  

By Daily Revelation Editor

Finance minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane will be delivering the budget speech, where he will outline the government’s priorities for the calendar year 2026.

This could as well be the last, or one of the many more budgets to come from the ruling UPND, given that the country would be going for the elections in just 11 months’ time. How years fly that it feels like it was only yesterday when the country was inaugurating President Hakainde Hichilema as the nation’s seventh Republican President. During that period, Hichilema has had his own fair share of successes as well as failures. His time in office or continuation therein will therefore be defined by how much his successes outweigh his failures or vice-versa.

The 2026 national budget is therefore coming at a pivotal time in the life of the country. Like we have stated, during his time in office, Hichilema has scored many successes, including the introduction of free education, renegotiating debt repayments with international creditors, partial NAPSA withdrawals, significant infrastructural works such as on the Lusaka-Ndola dual carriage way, among several successes. But he has also had his own fair share of failures, including the escalated cost of living in the country, high fuel and electricity prices, failure to fight especially the in-house corruption in the UPND administration. Also, as we write, the country is going through the worst load shedding period ever experienced in this nation, where instead of addressing the issue, he is now trying to make political capital out of it by scaling up electricity supply in densely populated areas with more voter catchment, while discriminating against the mayadi dwellers.

Like we mentioned, this is a budget that will be pronounced to operate during an election year, and we know the huge temptation on the part of those in government to prioritise projects that would be tailor made to appeal to their electioneering. However, for the good of all Zambians, we urge them to resist that temptation by focusing on prudent national undertakings that would serve the interests of all Zambians, now and into the future. Usually, priorities that are tailor made towards elections usually yield temporal short term benefits which end up affecting the country in the medium to long term.

The UPND has scored many successes. Our hope would therefore be to see them allocating more resources towards enhancing on the goods works they are already doing, while addressing public concerns on other matters where the country could reap huge dividends. For instance, the price of copper, which is Zambian’s mainstay, has been enjoying record high prices for many years, and we would expect that the government would announce policies that would ensure that the country gets maximum benefits from its main economic activity. We know that they want increased investment in the mining industry and therefore think that the lower taxes they have placed on the mines would attract more investors to come into the market. However, a situation can still be found that will ensure a win-win situation where Zambians will get enough from the mines while guaranteeing scaled up investment in the industry. Revisit the low royalties the government has given to the mines so that Zambians can get a fair share from the same. And given the high copper prices on the international market, which are expected to further appreciate in future, a windfall tax on the mines would not be harmful.

The idea of scaled up CDF programme is also good, but it has also seen its own challenges in terms of the corruption and wastage of resources that has resulted from the scaled up expenditure. We do not expect the government to increase the CDF beyond its current threshold, unless they have put in place meaningful safeguards to ensure prudence and accountability in the facility.