By Daily Revelation Reporter
MMD leader Dr Nevers Mumba says those without a vision will criticize the 2023 national budget.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on the reduced national budget, from K172 billion in 2022 to K167 billion in 2023, presented by Finance minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane yesterday, pastor Mumba said this was a budget that gave him hope for the future.
“It is something that if someone doesn’t have vision he would actually criticise. And that is the tax holidays given to the mining sector and the investors in the mining industry. I remember when we did this with Levy Mwanawasa there was a lot of criticism that we were giving foreigners tax holidays when our people didn’t have them,” pastor Mumba said. “But that is a very unique sector that first of all you have to find an investor and that investor has to be interested in coming to your country, because there are many other countries that do copper around the world. And for Zambia to be chosen it must have conducive environment for the investor and we may not get immediate benefits from it but we are going to create jobs. Through them our people will be employed and at the appropriate time taxes are going to be coming to the nation and you actually rebuild that sector that could otherwise go down.”
He said Zambia has backsliden in mining production, producing half of what the DRC produces, something he said was embarrassing as Zambia has more infrastructure and more systems to make the country be ahead of Congo. He said he felt the country lost an opportunity during the PF reign, but that the tax holidays and reorganising the tax regime in the mines would invite more investors and give them the confidence to come to Zambia.
He said this was what they did during the Mwanawasa time, urging Zambians to stick together.
“I am not saying that everything is perfect but I think that some of the fundamentals remind me of the Levy Mwanawasa season and I feel extremely confident that building on these we might be able to get our country from the doldrums,” pastor Mumba said.
Pastor Mumba said what came to his mind when he saw the budget presentation was the late president Levy Mwanawasa, saying he felt after listening to this budget presentation the same way he felt when Mwanawasa instituted economic reforms.
He said there was a feeling of hope as it is a budget that does not affect the fundamentals because it was not drastic to disturb fundamentals upon which an economy can grow, and that he felt great hope in the same manner he felt when Mwanawasa started to reconstruct the economy.
Pastor Mumba noted the manner in which the tax regime has been handled creating an opportunity for the lower income and middle income to retain more money in their pockets and thereby retaining their capacity to spend, and invest into the economy.
But asked on the removal of visa requirements for those coming from the whole western world, European Union, Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, and China and the gulf states, which will cost the country income from that vote in terms of visa fees, pastor Mumba said economics was like business as it was important to take risks by doing something drastic enough that would get people looking at Zambia and what was happening in the country.
Dr Mumba said during his time serving under Mwanawasa as vice-president, they created an opportunity for investors to come into the country and be free to take out all their profits if they wanted, something he said was not being done by any other country on the continent.
He said they did so because they were of the understanding that the investors would not send all their profits outside the country as they would want to invest more in that which was bringing them profits, arguing that these are strategic steps one takes when the economy is not in good shape to restart the economy.
“So for me anybody who takes a risk like that one with the visas and everything we can always readjust them if we feel that our intended benefit is not coming. We can always reintroduce them to another level, but I think I understand what government is trying to do. It’s to reestablish Zambia as a destination for investment,” pastor Mumba said.
But put to him that while those coming from outside have had visa fees waived those in government have imposed costs on Zambians in terms of fuel hikes which will push general prices skyrocketing in the economy, pastor Mumba said budgeting was a vision and must not be short term.
He said it was not as if the economy would come to its knees by removing visa fees, saying people will have access to Zambia, but the key was to have a vision on how to take advantage of that as a country as there was no free lunch.
Pastor Mumba said they would spend more money here than they would spend on their visas, and at the end of the day the country would not be losing that much.
But asked that it was a fact that not everyone coming into the country, even from the rich countries, was not well to do to spend sufficiently or invest in Zambia, and asked if the country was not risking a situation where just about everyone will be pouring into the country, pastor Mumba said there were laws in Zambia as no one came into the country without being processed to come.
“You may not pay for your visa but it doesn’t mean that the immigration are not going to process you to come into this country. Even if he comes as a tourist and doesn’t pay $50 visa fee and he stays in Livingstone in hotels and pays money for the food, he will spend more than $50. We will still get that money back,” he said, and that Zambia was not the only country with that system.
Pastor Mumba said even big countries like the USA had countries it has waived visas for.
“It’s a general global practice that you make a decision that these people if they are allowed to come to our country first of all we do not think that they are going to sponsor some kind of crime or terrorism. And secondly that they are going to spend when they come here. I am not saying there is a perfect option in rebuilding the economy, obviously we will have certain problems arising from this decision and that’s the way life is,” pastor Mumba said. “On the overall it is hoped that it will speed up or encourage people to come into our country…they will not be fasting when they come into the country, they will be eating.”
But some in the opposition have accused the President of being a puppet of the west, and asked how he interpreted a situation, but pastor Mumba said even Chinese and those from some gulf states will come in too and they were not part of the west.
“I have been in government before and I know exactly the pressure the government is under, they found an economy that was dilapidated or gone and you have to now shake the whole global community to let them know that we are ready for business,” pastor Mumba said. “If you want to call puppets then Joe Biden is also a puppet to the European and the European Union is also a puppet to the United States. It’s got nothing to do with being a puppet. It’s strategic planning.”
Pastor Mumba said people should have talked more during the PF when the economy was being torn to shreds and being alienated from the global economy and when Congo was overtaking Zambia in terms of copper production.
Asked on the fact that the budget for 2023 has reduced to K167 billion from the over K172 billion for 2022, against expectations that budgets must always be increasing year on year, pastor Mumba said he was not able to comment on that but speculated that there could be other variations involved as the rate of the Kwacha was not the same as it was last year to other major convertible currencies.
He said budgeting was about re-allocation and deciding where to put money.
“We don’t know what criteria they have used but I think it will be an interesting option to investigate,” said pastor Mumba.
