Dear Editor,
ACCORDING to the Minister of Finance in Parliament last week, our generation has accrued an external debt of US$14.48 billion since 2005.
Our agony is that instead of coming up with a strategy aimed at quickly dismantling this unsustainable debt, the UPND Government has proudly announced that it has signed a Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI) with a number of lenders.
The main objective of the DSSI to suspend debt repayments to dismantle the US$14.48 billion, and instead borrow more and more, allegedly for education and health.
Certainly, we do not have an education crisis in Zambia. And certainly, we do have a health crisis. Thus, to assume there is an education and health crisis in this country, warranting DSSI, is certainly delusional.
In this regard, it is our considered view that DSSI is merely a worst case scenario of intergenerational injustice. And in fact, DSSI runs afoul with national values and principles enshrined in the Constitution of Zambia.
For, there is absolutely no justification, whatsoever, for the UPND Government to postpone payment of liabilities of our generation to be borne by posterity, on delusional grounds.
Our expectations from the UPND Government, as a matter of priority, is focus on developing innovative high value income generating ventures targeted at dismantling liabilities of our generation, and generating wealth for posterity, thanburdening our future generations with unsustainable debts.
In all fairness, DSSI is simply an insult to posterity.
PETER SINKAMBA.
Author
