The Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) has welcomed President Edgar Lungu’s directive to cut on non-core government expenditure.
CSPR Executive director Kryticous Shindano has welcomed the move saying the current economic downturn is of great concern to every Zambian especially the vulnerable in society.
Mr. Shindano said coupled with a strong political will, the new measures have in the short to medium term profound gains for the long term economic turnaround of the country.
This is contained in a statement issued to ZANIS in Lusaka today.
And Mr. Shindano has called on government and other implementing agencies to ensure that the Presidential measures on resuscitating the country’s economy are actualised.
Mr. Shindano further called on government to contain foreign borrowing to reduce on the cost of repayments while also reducing domestic borrowing to free some funds for private sector lending and induce the lowering of interest rates.
He expressed hope that that this fiscal measure will no doubt complement the effectiveness of monetary policy to cushion the erosion of the Kwacha’s value.
And The ruling PF has defended the austerity measures announced by President Lungu on Thursday that only those who do not mean well for the nation cannot support such measures.
PF media Committee Vice Chairman Sunday Chanda says the same measures President Lungu has announced are the same measures proposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Mr. Chanda has told QFM News that certain sections of society expressing concern that the changes announced to the importation of fuel will result in prices of goods and services going up are not being fair knowing too well that the country needs to save for it to survive the current economic shocks.
He has emphasized that these are not permanent measures saying when things stabilize obviously the government will have to revise them once again.
Mr. Chanda says it is unfortunate that some stakeholders do not want to bring out the good aspect of President Lungu’s pronouncements like the creation of over 10, 000 jobs on the Copperbelt as a mitigation measure to help some miners who have lost their jobs.
He says what the nation should know is that in times like this one, there is need to work together and put party interests aside.
Clearly Zambians have no clue what the term austerity means. Every minister’s, deputy ministers’, PS’ office and some offices of Mayors have fully connected DSTV and you say there is austerity? What a joke! Do you know how many hospital beds can be bought from the money being wasted on DTSV connections in these offices?
We did not know that, we cannot know all those details, so why not bring such wastage to the attention of our listening President, the one and only kateka for action?
It would be very easy to implement because all you need is stop the subscriptions immediately.
If you take them to unnamed opposition leaders they will not use such important information to correct things, but will use it in their dead campaigns.
Does he need to be reminded over such straight forward wastage of public resources? Imwould be shocked if he didn’t know this! He can also learn from President Magufuli of Tanzania on how he is dealing with wastage of resources. He can also learn the true and correct approach to leadership from Pope Benedict.
*****!!!!!