ALLIANCE for Democracy and Development (ADD) president Charles Milupi says Zambia’s economic recovery will only be realised when a new government is voted into power.

In an interview, Milupi said the PF government was simply unwilling to create a realistic recovery path, adding that Cabinet lacked the ability to get the country out of the economic crisis.

“They cannot put in place a plan for the economy to recover for two reasons. One, they don’t have the ability to do that. Look at the Cabinet. Who is in that Cabinet that can spearhead an economic recovery plan? Who? The Ministers, who are there, were picked for other reasons other than running and growing the economy. There is no minster there whom I can point at and say, ‘this one has the ability to lead the country into an economic recovery plan.’ Number two, they are not willing to do that. That’s not what they are in government for; they are not willing at all,” Milupi said.

He said from the onset, PF had only been interested in politicking rather than addressing Zambia’s economic challenges.

He cited government’s move to arrest political rivals at a time when the country needed an economic recovery plan as testament to the regime’s inability to urgently address national issues.

“And when I say this, I mean, look at their action right from their beginning. Look at their actions. Their actions have never been that of a government that wants to put the economy on a recovery path. They are interested in playing what they call politics. That is why they would rather arrest a political rival when they should be thinking about ways of creating an economic recovery plan. We told them when they knock out three zeroes from the currency that those numbers will come back as long the fundamentals of the economy are not right. You get the growth that you want to achieve, then you get stability in the money markets,” Milupi said.

“You get stability in the fiscal arena. They have never really done that since they came to power. We are currently heading towards the Zimbabwe way. The inflation that this country is experiencing is not only worrying, it’s a danger now to the economy. Just look at the budget. The Minister (of Finance) announced a budget of K119 billion. But when you look at the revenue side, only K66 billion arises from within ourselves. The rest of the money will come from borrowing. How do you sustain an economy via continuous borrowing? They have never learnt a lesson that borrowing is not good.”

And Milupi said Zambia would only fully recover when a new government is voted into office next year.

“I will tell you something, the only reasonable solution to putting our economy on a recovery plan is to bring a new government. The PF cannot do anything that will help Zambia’s economy. In the budget, two items alone, just to pay the interest and public workers just those two require K74 billion. And yet on the revenue side, we can only realise K66 billion. You can see how messed up we are as a country. You cannot put the country in recovery mode when you continue this load shedding nonsense! Where is the electricity going? What is Zesco doing with the power? So, we are wasting our time to talk about what they can do. I would have said they are reluctant and worsening the economy, the economy will only become worse as long as the PF are in charge. They simply cannot do the right thing, it’s impossible,” said Milupi.