Zambians are suffering with load shedding because of government’s appetite for money who opted to export power instead of increasing local supply, Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) president Edith Nawakwi has said
Ms Nawakwi also said the reason why there is load shedding is not because water levels at Lake Kariba are low but the actual sense is that they are exporting power to neighbouring countries,.
Ms Nawakwi said the fact Zambia was exporting power to three countries was proof the country has enough power such that no household could be even load shedded.
She said the PF invested heavily such that they left an excess of 1, 000 megawatts over the national requirements of power.
“Why should Zambians be suffering the consequences of the UPND’s appetite for money,” she said.
Ms Nawakwi said people complained about the excessive borrowing by the PF but they had a very good plan because they invested the money in the energy sector to enable the country to have the capacity to export power.
She said as if the selling of power was not enough, this government has exported all the maize and the local people were now buying expensive mealie meal.
Ms Nawakwi said the way the UPND is mismanaging the country is out of this world because the decisions they are making are very hard to understand.
She said the PF invested the money in money-making ventures like the toll gates, capacity to export power and many other income streams besides the Zambia Revenue Authority but they still complain that they found empty coffers.
Ms Nawakwi said the PF made sure that there was enough money for people to be doing business of importations so that they could be paying tax at the border, there was enough food and people were not desperate as they were today.
She said the country was yet to see any idea that boost economic activities by this administration aside from flying around following the foreigners.
Ms Nawakwi said Tanzanians were buying cheap fertiliser at K600 per bag but they do not manufacture any fertiliser and get it from the same sources where this country gets it and they were also experiencing effects of the war in Ukraine just as this country but why were things expensive in here.
She said despite Zambia being home to many fertiliser companies, shamefully people were sharing maize seeds under the Farmer Input Support Programme.
