Lungu’s 500, 000 jobs promise was a lie- UPND

President Edgar Lungu has been accused of having deliberately mislead the Zambian people that government is capable of creating 500, 000 jobs in just one year.

The opposition UPND says President Lungu lied when he promised, during the launch of the 2015 Youth Policy and Action Plan for Youth Empowerment, that 500,000 jobs would be created by the end of 2016.

UPND Chairman for Labour Percy Chanda says from his party’s observation it is clear that the PF government can only manage to create 19,367 jobs per year.

Mr. Chanda has told Qfm News in statement that this given the fact that the PF government has created just about 96,836 jobs since 2011.

He states that from this understanding his party has concluded that President Lungu must have known that his government does have the capacity to create 500, 000 jobs in one year.

Mr. Chanda notes that what the UPND is in fact seeing in the Country is massive job redundancies.

He says this is why his party has consistently advised the PF government to invest the money it has borrowed, such as the Eurobonds, in productive sectors of the economy.

Mr. Chanda notes that the Agriculture sector, for example, can alone create over 200,000 jobs if the Country invests in agribusiness and value addition