Thursday, March 28, 2024

Zambia’s Socialist Party Leader Criticizes IMF Deal, Emphasizes Need for Agricultural Growth

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Socialist Party President Dr Fred M’membe has outlined his plans to prioritize the agricultural sector and transform peasant agriculture if his party comes into power. In a press statement, he emphasized the need for decisive action to remove obstacles to the collection of fair taxes from mines and reduce the government’s need to borrow.

“We need to explore Zambia’s great potential in the agricultural sector by paying particular attention to peasant agriculture and agro-processing, and linking it to the health and education sectors,” Dr M’membe said. “This will create lasting economic growth and employment.”

He went on to stress the importance of transformative peasant agriculture, which would require new equipment and the establishment of factories throughout the country. According to M’membe, this would create numerous job opportunities for engineers, technicians, human resources experts, accountants, IT experts, marketing and sales staff, drivers, mechanics, nurses, and clinical officers.

“To produce these new equipment, we will need to set up factories all over the country employing people with different skills,” M’membe said. “Of course, our reality, as it stands today, is that we may not have all the engineering expertise required to set up and run these factories. We may have to rely on expatriate skills while we train our people in our schools, colleges, and universities.”

M’membe acknowledged that peasant agriculture had traditionally been carried out using manual labor, but argued that this needed to change. “We cannot increase agricultural production with a hoe,” he said. “That’s for planting flowers around your house and a few beds of vegetables to feed a small family. Our plans are much bigger than that and will involve many jobs being created in the agricultural sector because of the transformations we will make.”

The Socialist Party leader also criticized the current government’s reliance on an IMF deal to address the country’s economic problems. “The IMF deal that this government has pressed its entire hope on will not help us much to address the country’s rocketing prices, growing poverty, desperation, and joblessness,” he said.

M’membe concluded by saying that the Socialist Party government would prioritize the agricultural sector to create employment and ensure lasting economic growth. “By investing in transformative peasant agriculture, we can achieve our potential and lift many out of poverty,” he said. “This is the future we are working towards.”

6 COMMENTS

  1. Comrade mmembe is way more wiser and intelligent than hh. If you don’t believe me then go check their cvs. I would rather be rules by comrade than the lying f00I hh

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  2. “The Socialist Party leader also criticized the current government’s reliance on an IMF deal to address the country’s economic problems.”

    That’s what happens when the President used to be the country manager for Price Waterhouse Coopers/Coopers and Lybrand and Grant Thornton, two major international consulting firms.

    And why is Fred Mmembe always shaking his finger around at the Lusaka Times?

  3. If you don’t rely on IMF, who is going to help you deal with the $20 billion debt the country owes? Do you think China will just write off the debts like that?
    Ask Sri Lanka what has happened to the Airports and Seaports China built.
    This debt has to be settled by whatever govt comes to power. So Mmembe has to first tell the nation how his party is going to settle the debt.

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    • Who said the Chinese want to write off the debt…the Chinese can restructure the debt but Hakainde is afraid of flying to Beijing as he does not want to disappoint his white masters in Washington he looks up to.

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  4. IMF have only offered to lend Zambia $1.3 billion but the PF borrowed close to $16 billion from other lenders in just 10 years.
    How can any person in his right mind condemn the $1.3 billion IMF rescue deal?
    Compare $1.3 billion vs $16 billion

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  5. Zambia has the means to make this $16 billion, without even going the route of the IMF. We need to cut on the govt wage bill as the civil service is too bloated. Secondly the mines, we need to expedite the process of KCM and Mopani, thirdly but related to the mines we need to start shoring up our gold reserves as gold will be the currency of the future which we can either sale for Forex or save it for future use, thirdly agriculture we must export everything and not has restrictions on any commodity for farmers that are not on FISP and lastly tourism and skills export. We need more tourists to come in but for that the roads must be worked on, we need to export more of our skilled labour inorder to have remittances sent in forex to Zambia from abroad. Let’s be proactive and pragmatic.

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