On Friday 27th August 2021, the new inaugurated President of Zambia announced his first cabinet minister.
Situmbeko Musokotwane has been tasked with translating the UPND’s economic agenda for Zambia into reality.
“Our Minister of Finance, Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane, has a wealth of experience from being an advisor to the IMF, an advisor to President Mwanawasa, Secretary to the Treasury, deputy Bank of Zambia governor, among other relevant functions that will be valuable for his role”, read a tweet from President Hakainde Hichilema’s official twitter account which has become a source insight into how the leadership will be communicating to the electorate.
In a separate tweet, the President provided an indication of what the new Finance Ministers Key Performance (KPIs) would be. “As Zambia’s CEO, I expect my CFO and team to: 1. Dismantle public debt 2. Enforce fiscal discipline 3. Rebuild the fiscus 4. Drive decentralisation 5. Stop financial leakage 6. Produce a progressive budget 7. Engage creditors transparently 8. Foster economic development”
The UPND manifesto provides insight into how the new Government will seek to achieve these targets.
UPND Manifesto on the Economic Program
The following is an extract from the UPND’s 2021 to 2025 Manifesto and focuses on key statements regarding the proposed approach to achieving recovery. Dr. Situmbeko will be expected to use this “framework” as a basis of implementing the economic recovery programme.
Verbatim
“The UPND government is up to the task of instituting a robust recovery programme and placing the economy back on its previous growth path. Unlike the pre 2011 period, we are conscious of the risks of delivering jobless growth, such as stagnated social indicators and widening inequalities. Our focus will therefore be on attaining outcomes beyond economic growth and towards greater inclusion and poverty reduction.
Through sound and responsible economic management, we shall implement our development agenda of economic trans- formation to deliver our national vision and individual aspirations of our citizens.
We will firmly strengthen the formulation and implementation of credible macroeconomic, social, external sector and sectoral (microeconomic) policies, including specific policy reforms to lower the fiscal deficit, manage and eventually reduce public debt, and restore social and market confidence. This will bring stability to the economy, enabling a speedy recovery in economic growth, and ensuring debt sustainability. In this regard, we commit to doing the following:
Strengthen tax policy and administration to broaden the tax base, reduce the individual tax burden on families and companies, while shifting emphasis on consumption taxes and improve overall revenue collection.
- Ensure fiscal expenditure rationalization, prudence and discipline.
- Maintain a strong, cautious and conservative monetary policy stance.
- Increase budgetary allocations to social protection, including addressing the plight of pensioners.
- Improve economic and fiscal governance through the strengthening of regulations and laws to ensure transparency of spending decisions.
- Improve budget credibility through better planning, adherence to expenditure plans and improvement of the quality of government’s spending.
- Increase international reserves, creating a buffer to cushion the economy against external shocks.
- Improve the country’s economic stability through easing access to credit, lowering lending rates and reducing inflation.
- Strengthen statistical analysis capacity to improve policy-making and better track progress.