PF Media Director, Sunday Chanda says people underplaying the negative impact of COVID 19 and climate change on the economy are not up to date with reality.
Speaking when he featured on ‘Policy, Money and Power’ radio programme on Money fm, Mr. Chanda said 2020 has been very challenging when it
comes to the economic performance of the country.
He said as a result of COVID 19, the country experienced drastic reduction in revenue collection and pushed expenditure up because most businesses were forced to close and in some instances depended on government for survival.
“When you have drastic reductions in revenue collection and you have businesses trying to survive in the wake of COVID 19 and in some instances depending on government for survival the economy suffers. We had some businesses that closed down due to COVID 19 and workers were laid off or put on half salary, so anyone underplaying the negative impact of COVID 19 on the economy is not up to date with reality,” Mr.Chanda said.
“2020 has been a very challenging year for Zambia and the globe at large. Our economy being commodity-driven, means whenever we have low copper prices we see a downward spiral in revenue and we see the Kwacha losing value. That is why PF has said to itself that we diversify the economy and bring other sectors on the table so that we
stop depending on copper,” He said.
And Mr. Chanda said even in the midst of harsh economic conditions the PF government has remained steadfast to ensure that it overcomes all the challenges and improves the lives of Zambians.
“Some of the key factors we have seen has been a key policy shift. We have seen the easing of doing business, we have seen the country promoting domestic as well as foreign investment, for instance, matters of trade and just setting up a company you can register a company with PACRA within 24hrs and 48hrs. The business environment in the
the country allows for the private sector to thrive without any challenges and this is commendable,” Mr. Chanda said.
Meanwhile, Mr.Chanda said Zambia is poised to be a net exporter of electricity in the region and also ultimately end load shedding in the country by March next year.
“The country experienced worst droughts and had a negative bearing on the economy and the massive load shedding we are experiencing today is as a result of massive drought and poor rainfall patterns the country experienced in 2015. We still have load shedding today but by March next year it will be a thing of the past.
Mate Zambia’s economy was already in free fall long before COVID-19 was discovered in Wuhan… spare us the nonsense. We know personally your kind has benefited immensely from COVID-19 because you found an excuse divert state funds and donated funds. Please just enjoy your loot.
By the way you look much better than that old photo LT keeps using on your garbage articles.
Good read: This is how Lungu is planning to rig Zambia’s 2021 general election (Mail Guardian South Africa): https://mg.co.za/africa/2020-09-25-this-is-how-lungu-is-planning-to-rig-zambias-2021-general-election/
Sunday, your brother, a useless minister, promised water in all compounds, now you change story that there is covid-19 in rivers?
Zambias economic decline started way before Covid, even the immediate past bank of Zambia governor confirmed this fact.
Nooooo , blaming climate change and covid of just past years for the ICU economy is disingenuous……how come every single economic indicator has been in decline ever since lungu came to power…also if climate change is one of the factors in load shedding , Why has the majority of power investments been in hydro which is prone to poor rainfall ???
On continuing to build for future power generation , Mr lungu just be commended.
I salute you Mr lungu.
Exagerrating the impact is not being real either. Corruption, greed and social injustice are bigger threats to mankind than climate change and diseases.
PF ground the economy to its knees and think the easy way out is to blame Covid.
Developed countries are today talking about the economic fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic as a result of reduced economic activity arising from lockdowns. Predictions were made by how much domestic economies of developed countries were going to contract, as well as the likelihood of an economic recession never experienced on the African continent in the last 25 years. All this was coming from respectable bodies like the Economic Commission for Africa. Yet naysayers on this site are still trying to downplay this. A drop in commodity prices as a result of reduced economic activity in the world’s second biggest economy, China, to which we export much of our largest foreign exchange earner, Copper, was being used to illustrate the effect this would have on economies specializing in the…
…production of primary products like ours through the expression ” When China sneezes, the rest of the world catches a flu”. So how do naysayers say Covid-19 has no gobal economic effects? Only those with no understanding of globalisation can say linking Covid_19 to the economic fallout is disingenuous.
I see nine chales clone has finally learned how to clone a picture. It took this f00l over 4 months to learn how to do that.
As usual Sunday is speaking sense. Nothing more for me to add to this article. I endorse every word of it. As for ba diaspora continue choking with your chifukushi
Underplaying the impact of abnormal borrowing and corruption is not being real… in fact nibumwankole!!!1 #napita mukwai
With ongoing COVID-19 Overall investor sentiment is more cautious All as can be seen in performance of markets globally MSCI APAC Index down 3.2% Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 5.0% Shanghai Composite on China fell 3.6% S&P 500 Index down -0.6% France’s CAC 40 Index ,down 5.0% with resurgence I covid cases ,FTSE 100 Index down 2.7%The MSCI World Index down 1.7%. European equities l, down 3.6% on the week, whilst the MSCI Asia Pacific down 3.2%. but the good lessons to look to is JAPAN in this COVID19 period how to work local economies Japan is working its economy managing those exposures and contagions The impact of covid19 in Investments landscape Can be seen in these global indicators worse-off the k sharped recovery now will have long durations for countries like…
Thank you Kaizer, but tone down the language that’s when Nine Chale will respect you for who you are!
Your lies won’t work. The economy was already in trouble long before COVID-19 became a problem. The list of misdeeds done by the PF government with mismanaging the economy are too long to list here.
The impact should be factored and solutions found to navigate this crisis also There will always be For instance Consider and view impact of COVID-19 on FDIs as a vital resources Observe the dramatic drop in across markets and regions here COVID-19 will have an immediate negative impact in 2020 and 2021 Global FDI flows are forecast to decrease by up to 40 per cent in 2020 below $1 trillion from $1.54 trillion in 2019 and are further projected to fall by an average of 8% in 2021 performance worse than post global financial crisis of 2009 compounding other negative macroeconomic effects on GDP growth on certain sectors of our social and human livelihood Notice why those markets matter because Reinvestment earnings play an increasingly important role in FDI flows and the negative…
and the negative performance of those markets gives you a clue on the effects of covid19 The covid19 crisis has depressed earnings and as natural investors are expected to reinvest a smaller share of their earnings than they have done in the recent past. Equity capital flows will also drop as many new investments are put on hold information due to the uncertainties poised by the pandemic. Review 2019,In 2019, FDI flows to Africa Already declined by 10 per cent to $45 billion and its important as policy objective To seriously strategies on Attracting FDI especially in those primary sectors the pandemic is having much greater impacts in some sectors than others on Earnings, such as manufacturing See outlook and performance for top 5,000 MNEs worldwide Zambia like other commodity…
PF are masters of giving excuses justifying their failures and also masters at having zero solutions to fix those failures.