THE year 2022 has been a very difficult year for the private sector because government did not
have enough resources to support economic growth as it was trying to sort out the country’s
debt burden, Private Sector development Association, Yusuf Dodia has said.
Mr Dodia said most of the government resources were channeled towards social security
investments and as a result, the economy was not being driven by government investments in
economic growth.
He said government decided to come up with a K 22 billion supplementary budget because it
was failing to manage to run the country’s developmental agenda within the K173 billion kwacha
budget which was initially approved.
“The year 2022 has been a very difficult year for the private sector and in 2021 Covid 19 hit the
nation and there was load shedding, productivity had become very low and businesses were
trying to normalize towards the end of 2021 hoping that in 2022 things would be better,” Mr
Dodia said.
Mr Dodia said in the first months of 2022 war broke out in Russia and Ukraine and this has
continued to drive upwards the price of fuel, edible oil and fertilizer internationally.
He said this has impacted the country’s economy which depends on importation of edible oil
and fertilizer.
Mr Dodia further said the monthly fuel price reviews which have been going up was hurting
businesses which are already pressured by the high electricity tariffs.
He said the recently announced increased connectivity by ZESCO has gone up in addition to
increased electricity tariffs and this would undermine economic growth because it depends on
electricity and fuel in order to support the industry.
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