A senior Patriotic Front member Martin Mbaya has questioned where government will find the money to recruit 30,000 teachers and 11,000 health workers when it has been claiming that it inherited empty coffers.
Yesterday during the presentation of the 2022 national budget Finance minister Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane announced that government has secured funds to recruit teachers and health workers.
Mr. Mbaya said government should come out in the open tell nation where the money for the recruitment will come from.
“The people of Zambia deserves to know where the money will come from because from inception the new dawn 5has been claiming that it has inherited empty coffers,” said Mr. Mbaya.
He said if government is depending on the USD1.3 billion from the World Bank meant for the construction of secondary schools, it will be going against the agreement.
He said donor funds always comes with conditions attached to it which cannot be forgone.
He said government should find a sustainable plan of sustaining the 30,000 teachers and the 11,000 health workers when they deplete the donor funds.
“Because we should not forget that sooner or later there will be a drain on the treasury when the funds are exhausted,” he said.
And Mr. Mbaya has stated that the whole 2022 national budget is too good to be true and that it is not adding up.
He said this is because 62 percent of the budget will come from external borrowing which will result into failure to maintain the debt stock that will be acquired.
He said going by the figures which where presented by the minister, Zambia is going to borrow per fiscal year not less than USD4.5 billion.
“Now if you multiply USD4.5 by 5, it means that by 2026 we would have borrowed in excess of USD25 billion. So how then do you sustain that debt stock? At the end of the day, everything is not adding up,” he said.
He has advised government to calm down and be able to do things that are within their means because it is pointless to bring a budget that is not sustainable.
