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The ruling United Party for National Development (UPND) has accused the opposition political parties of deliberately trying to misinform citizens over the debt agreement.
UPND Secretary-General, Batuke Imenda, said the opposition were twisting the narrative about Zambia’s debt restructuring, earlier agreed with Official Creditors and the Bondholders.
Imenda said this in a statement issued in Lusaka on Saturday, blaming the United Kwacha Alliance as the main culprits.
He said President Hakainde Hichilema and his administration did not ask for debt forgiveness because they know they can pay back the Patriotic Front (PF) acquired debt given an enabling fiscal space.
“Therefore, it’s a fact that debt restructuring is not debt forgiveness as the doomsayers are trying to mislead and lie to Zambians,” Imenda stated.
He said the party was aware of the opposition scheming to misinform Zambians on national issues.
Imenda stated that the opposition believed that Zambians do not understand the difference between debt forgiveness and restructuring, hence their unbridled propaganda against the achievement by the Hichilema administration
“But Zambians know that Debt restructuring is a necessary exercise to fix public finances which were highly compromised by the Patriotic Front government’s financial indiscipline and recklessness,” Imenda said.
He argued that the restructuring of the debt to pay later was necessary to create fiscal headroom for the country.
Imenda counseled the opposition to know that they were only embarrassing themselves before Zambians, who were direct beneficiaries of the debt relief.
“If Zambians were made to pay back the 750 million dollars in 2022, 1.3 billion dollars in 2024 and another 1 billion dollars in 2027, which PF borrowed, their lives could have been in disarray,” he said.
Imenda noted that Zambians fully understood that the government had only been accorded fiscal space by its official creditors and bondholders.
He said President Hichilema first needed to tackle the debt burden imposed on them by former president Edgar Lungu with his friends before embarking on accelerated developmental programmes.
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“As elaborated by the hard working Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane, the UPND shall now focus on ramping up productivity, achieving food security, collecting enough taxes to fund our social budget and increasing both local and foreign investments,” Imenda stated.
He said the hate being exhibited and the prejudice being held against the UPND government would not help the opposition who reportedly do not mean well for the citizens of this country.
“Lungu and his friends in the United Kwacha Alliance are manipulating the narrative that debt restructuring will not benefit the citizens,” he claimed.
Imenda said it was shameful that those who aspire to lead the country were bent on causing further destruction, where the majority citizens are condemned to excruciating poverty and misery.
“President Hichilema and his team are working extremely hard to develop this country. They are individuals that are now shamelessly claiming that they started the process and are now eager to share credit,” he said.
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