By Isaac Zulu
The 2022 National Budget is an appeasement budget, says Faustina Sinyangwe.
In an interview with Daily Revelation, Sinyangwe, who is former Matero member of parliament, said the UPND needed a year in government before making the policy pronouncements that they have made in the national budget.
“They have only been in government for a month and they start saying that they are going to employ 30,000 teachers, they are going to abolish tuition fees, they will abolish examination fees and PTA fees. I personally think that they needed a year in government so that they are well informed before they can implement these policy pronouncements; before rushing making these decisions in the budget,” explained Sinyangwe.
She observed that the removal of tuition fees and PTA fees entails that the government has to start spending huge sums of money in form of grants to schools.
“They have to pay money to the Examination Council of Zambia to print examination papers, they have to pay teachers to mark exams, invigilators have to be paid plus transportation of examination papers to various districts. All these are costs,” said Sinyangwe, who is also an educationist. “When you are making a budget, you look at estimates in terms of your income and expenditures. But situations change; you can have COVID-19, for instance, and the money you were expecting does not come in. You need to factor in all those issues. So when I analyse this budget; I personally look at it as an appeasement budget. The 2022 National Budget is an appeasement budget. And you cannot run a country by appeasing people; you have to do things that are realistic.”
And Sinyangwe is doubtful if the UPND will sustain the recruitment of 30, 000 teachers.
“I have worked in the ministry of education for a long time and I know that inadequate teachers is the biggest challenge that has been facing the education sector. You know education is anchored on three things namely; access, quality and equity,” she explained. “So recruiting 30,000 teachers means that access will be attained because more pupils will be enrolled and they will have teachers to teach them. But I only have one worry… my worry is whether they are going to sustain the 30,000 teachers that they are going to recruit. Mind you, it’s not only the 30,000 that they intend to recruit; there are those that are already employed.”
She said there was need government to conduct a needs assessment before making certain policy pronouncements in the budget, so that they could know what is on the ground today and come up with a situation analysis.
“That needs assessment should have been consultative… the teachers, parents in the villages and those of us that worked in the ministry of education should have been consulted,” said Sinyangwe. “”Otherwise we will be going backwards. Remember that PTA fees were done away with at some point. The government said no payment of anything and we had to do away with sanitary workers that were being paid using PTA money. Pupils started cleaning toilets and parents reacted. I think they don’t understand the situation as we speak today… some schools in remote areas do not even have chalk.”
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