By Patson Chilemba
Former commerce minister Bob Sichinga says President Hakainde Hichilema and his administration must tell Zambians their economic recovery plans, including measures they will put in place to mitigate external shocks to the economy and how the much touted IMF programme will help address the situation.
And Sichinga said he sees fuel prices being hiked at the end of the month, but that such should be incorporated in the recovery plan to avoid fuel price adjustments every month.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Sichinga said he expected President Hichilema to have told the nation by now about his recovery plan and how his government intends to mitigate external shocks such as the war in Ukraine on the local economy.
“Tell us where we are going. Where are the challenges? Also explain to us in detail the issue of what has been agreed with the IMF. How is that helping to address those same challenges we are talking about? The same that we are saying that brace for hard times. How is that borrowing going to help us? Because we criticised the PF for this huge borrowing, the question is if we are going to borrow ourselves we must explain how we want to use that borrowing to address the challenge that is before us,” Sichinga said. “So the president now should be saying, the President’s team should be saying to us, from what we have seen, the challenge we have seen, what we have assessed, this is how we are going to use IMF programme. Because what did they borrow the money for? Was it to settle the outstanding debt? Or was it to partly address such, partly to see how we can finance the progress going forward. Because settling existing debt is one thing. The question is how do you overcome that challenge so that you are not going back always borrowing. You want to avoid that.”
Sichinga said the country should have had a recovery plan, that for instance was saying that the country would embark on industrialisation, using local resources for which the country would pay nothing to the outside world
“So the point the President is making is what should have been made right from the word go, ‘there are hard times ahead.’ Some of it is a requirement for us to deal with our own internal problems which came from PF, some of which which is refining the UPND manifesto. But above all there is something else, there are those factors that are from outside which we have no control over, take the increment of the price of fuel,” Sichinga said. “Some of the things which are external we cannot do anything about them, but the question is how do we respond to them? How do we address them? How do we mitigate the challenges that are arising like that?
“So I agree with the President but what we need now, much more than just telling us about the problems is how are we going to mitigate. Where is the road map? There is no over arching plan. And the person who is in charge of that according to the planning and budgeting act is the minister of Finance. ‘Because of the shocks that we are experiencing, because of what we would have experienced as a result of PF and now what is happening in the world market this is how we are responding to it.’”
He continued.
“Fuel prices should be incorporated in that recovery plan. You cannot even if it was not for the war, even it If was not for the shortfall due to Covid, you cannot be adjusting it every month. Which business is going to plan on the monthly basis?” Sichinga asked. “For instance subsidies can go to production which improves your production but it doesn’t not always have to be consumer based.”
Sichinga said he did not see any other way other than an upward adjustment in fuel prices at the end of the month looking at global trends, but the key should be to have a plan recognising the problem.
“In fact for me the President should have given that message right form the word go. Even without knowing what PF was leaving behind he should have made that statement right form the word go. Why? Because we all knew the damage because we all saw how blatant PF was. So for me the President should have made a blanket statement to say we should brace for hard times ahead, the details of which I will inform you about as we access what was left behind on the ground, because they couldn’t have known the details. It’s not possible. That’s what happens with every government, you go in assess the situation, review whether your expectations are still valid or not,” said Sichinga. “The President now that they have been in office for six months they have had a chance to see what is happening in each ministry, review what PF programmes were and then they want to implement their own, which may differ from what PF was. Sometimes it may be the same because you don’t stop a programme just because it was started by another party.”
