ECONOMIST Trevor Hambayi says it is the duty of every Zambian to help President-Elect Hakainde Hichilema to fix the country’s economy.

And Hambayi says what Zambia needs the most is employment creation for the youth, who make up at least 60 percent of the population.

In an interview, Monday, Hambayi said Zambia’s economy was in a condition worse than what was imagined.

“It is never easy, it doesn’t matter what country it is, it doesn’t matter in what situation you are in except that Zambia’s [situation] is a lot worse than everybody expected. But there are a lot of positives that are there and I think this will start from a situation where the government will listen to the needs of the people. Whether the fact is that beyond this country, there’s a personal agenda where people squander national wealth for themselves, it really speaks to the fact that we do have resources in the country which we need to get our priorities on,” he said.

“Although ultimately I have heard about this ‘Bally will fix it’, I think the key aspect in terms of our country having to recover is that we will fix this with Bally. Every Zambian will have to play their role to be able to ensure that we come together for a common goal because we know what we want to achieve in our country.”

And Hambayi said there was need to create more jobs for the youths.

“It is the expectation of every Zambian to see that there is a full recovery of our economy. There were just too many factors that were not in place but the first aspect obviously is to start from stopping the continuing decline of macro economic indicators. You have seen that we have continued to see a rise in inflation, we have continued to have the depreciation of the Kwacha, we have continued to have a rising debt crisis, we have continued to have an increasing fiscal deficit, we have continued to have a decline in the GDP growth of the economy. All this we expect that they will start to be able to put the country on the right track for an economic recovery. It is through this economic recovery that we will be able to start to deal with the other challenges which are cardinal and this is employment creation for the multitude of youths that we have in the country,” he said.

“This is a very big issue because the population of this country is 60 percent youths who are below 35-years-old and who have not been able to secure jobs. I think that is a key issue. There are also other issues like policy changes in terms of how we are going to be able to drive economic recovery. They will need to deal with policies that will see benefits coming into the country. I think such are the key issues that will need to be employed immediately for an economic perspective. In all sense it is the expectation of every Zambian that we recover our economy so that we can reduce the cost of living.”

And Hambayi thanked Zambians who turned up in numbers to vote.

“It is important to congratulate the Zambian people for the way they have come out to be able to get their voices be heard for them to be able to say they do not accept the issues we are having today under the previous government which included tribalism, cadrerism, corruption and the issues of abuse. As a country we should be able to start to work towards the fundamental governance structures that will ensure that this never happens to us as a country where single people were willing to abuse the treasury to borrow for the entire country so that they could benefit and this is very positive for the Zambian people,” said Hambayi.