ECONOMIST Dr Grieve Chelwa has described the conditions attached to the IMF bailout package as heartless. And Dr Chelwa says the poor will be burdened by more taxes because one of the conditions is that government must limit the number of goods that are VAT exempt. Meanwhile, Dr Chelwa says although government has been encouraging citizens that the social cash transfer programme will be maintained and actually increased, the hike is too marginal to cushion the poor from the impending extra taxes. Recently, Finance and National Planning Minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane described the IMF conditionalities as “sweet”, arguing that the Bretton Woods institution had evolved and it was no longer attaching terrible conditions to its programmes. He said, however, that...

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