Musa Mwenye, State Counsel, says reducing senior government officials’ salaries cannot have any impact on the Zambian economy.

In a statement, Sunday, Mwenye argued that stoping corruption, wastefulness and theft of public resources was the only thing that could make a difference.

“Reducing salaries, whether voluntarily or not, will not have a significant impact on our current sad state of National affairs. The reason is rather simple. According to the FIC report we lost US$417 million to corruption in 2018 alone! The compound value of this money is colossal and shocking. Millions of dollars have been lost in inflated and wasteful procurements. We clearly did not need a state of the art presidential jet at this moment in our economic journey. Further, spending US$ 42 million on fire tenders which could have been bought for much much less is not wise when other African countries are using similar amounts on building solar electricity plants. We have bought ambulances from middle men at colossal sums only to be embarrassed by an announcement by a donor country that they had purchased and donated similar ambulances to us at less than 25% of the price. The list goes on and on and on. Our wounds are self inflicted – caused from within our own house,” stated Mwenye.

“Corruption and wastefulness got us where we are! No economic strategy will work without first stopping the leakages caused by corruption, wastefulness and theft. Let’s love this country enough to do the right thing.”