PeP unveils its 2018 alternative national budget

PeP President Sean Enock Tembo

The opposition Patriots for Economic Progress (PEP) has unveiled its first-ever K119.2 billion Alternative Budget for 2018 or 38.3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

Party President Sean Tembo says of this amount, K103.3 billion or 97.7 percent of the total budget would be financed by domestic revenues and K2.4 billion or 2.3 percent by grants by various Cooperating Partners.

He says there would be no portion of the budget that will be financed by domestic or external borrowing.

Mr Tembo who is also an economist says the allocations in this budget are targeted at addressing the issues of poverty alleviation, creating greater capacity for the Zambia Revenue Authority to collect tax revenue, increasing the educational subsidy and job creation.

He states that the size of the Zambian economy has shrunk significantly in the past 5 years from a Gross Domestic Product of $28.5 billion in 2011 to $20.5 billion in 2016, while in the same period the population has increased by about 2.5 million to about 16 million in 2016.

Mr. Tembo says this shrinkage in the economy together with the surge in the total population has resulted into a deterioration of the per capita income from about $2,100 in 2011 to about $1,280 in 2016.

He says by any measure, this is irrefutable evidence that Zambians have become poorer in the last 5 years or so.

And Mr. Tembo says the issue of national debt needs to be properly managed as it can easily cause the collapse of the economy.

He explains that the primary reason why the economy stagnated in the 20 year period between 1983 and 2003, is because the country was in a debt trap and it took the completion of the HIPC program for the debt to be forgiven, thereby getting the country out of the debt trap.