The Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) says that Zambia still has alarming levels of poverty despite the country having recently recorded an economic growth of over 40 percent.
CSPR Executive Director Patrick Mucheleka said that the 6.5 GDP growth recorded in the country between 2005 and 2010 does not correlate with the levels of poverty that are currently looming in the country.
Mr Mucheleka said that the growth benefits of the economy are only being felt by rich people and not the less privilleged people living in the rural areas of the country.
”It is sad that most Zambians especially in rural areas are walloping in abject poverty despite government’s claims of improving the economy.Iam calling upon government to massively take development to rural areas where social amenities still remains a challenge”,he said.
He stressed that the country’s economic growth figures do not tally with the poverty statistics which currently stand at 85 percent in the rural areas and 34 percent in urban areas because of lack of government funding to the key sectors of the country.
Mr Mucheleka pointed out that as long as the people are not put first on the agenda of the government the poverty levels of the country will continue to rise to unexplained and untold levels.
He explained that government should take deliberate measures to ensure that there is equal distribution of wealth among the people of Zambia. He also said that government should ensure that it aligns economic growth to poverty reduction if all Zambians are to benefit from the country’s wealth creation.
And the Civil Society for Poverty reduction has called on the government to learn from the Australian government move of introducing super tax on its mining sector so as to improve the country’s service delivery.
”Australian government has done extremely well especially with the super tax on its mining sector and we as CSPR urge our government to emulate our partners in the development of their economy from their own resources which has atrickled down to the rural masses”, Mucheleka said.
He said Government should get back to the discussion table with the country’s key stakeholders and reconsider reintroducing the Windfall tax to the Mining sector so as to enable the country raise its revenue base.
Middle income country?
So whats new!!??? Middle income my A.S.S we have always know that our national poverty levels stand between 70% – 80%. the irony is that the same villagers will vote MMD..
………..ask the poor and see what they think of this idea of calling Zed a middle income country, when they dont see any of it.
Poverty in Zed still stinks, you smell it the moment you meet the first Zedian asking you what you brought for them at the airport!
People should know that the regrading of zambia as a middle income country was not done by GRZ it was done by IMF. People should also learn that economic growth is not the same as economic development. CSPR should know this well before making such statements.
Lets admit it, Zambian are Super lazy!, Super Beer Drinkers and Super Foolish,
Just take a walk in any Compound, will you find the ratio of Bars/Tavens to Food stores/ Groceries to be 1000 bars for very 1 Grocery
Hey I am not Tonga, But I love Tonga people, they are super hard works and sometime despite Natural Disasters like Cattle diseases and Drought they are better off than people in the Northern Province or even Copperbelt– Ask your self why is it like this?
No president, Government or Miracle will change this poverty level if the gross-root dont change their attitude
I rest my case
You have serious issues that need sorting out…seek help quick before your bore an ulcer through your stomach lining. Believing something does not make it true. Go for psycho help.
Betters has a good point…by the way it is the abuse of alcohol that causes a lot of social ills! I take beer for social reasons!
Betters, you are spot on.
Most Zambians are plain lazy. The begging starts right at the airport. Mwati letelako chani is too rife?
Our politics must teach people to fend for themselves. That is the answer to the poverty.
Are they saying that if Sata is elected then poverty will disappear in 90 days?
Its is wishful thinking that you can get rid of poverty over night. Zambia like any other African country has decades of economic none performance because of poor economic policies which were mainly socialist oriented.
The good news is under the current GRZ we have started making gains in the right economic direction. USA, UK, etc never got were the are over night. Its required had work and good policies. China has had years of good economic growth and yet its has a long way to uplift its citizens from poverty. Unless you believe in the 90 day economic magic
Betters you speak right!
“Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth and thy want as an armed man”. Prov 6:10.
Laziness is one of the biggest problems we have in this country. Foreigners who have come to this country get appalled at how lazy we are. We have so much wealth in form of vast lands with minerals and good soils, water, good rains and other natural resources; yet we chose to sit and wait for a government to create wealth for us. Which government on earth creates wealth from nothing: it is the people that generate wealth and the government collects from the people in form of taxes to provide social services.
We seriously need to change the way we think about poverty and wealth creation!
#5 better _ whilst I agree that there is lazeness culture in zambia you are very wrong to paint every suffering Zambian with the same brush. I have been going to zambia every year for the last 5 years and my observations are contrary to yours. There so many hard working zambians who can’t find jobs. It is the govts responsibility to create jobs. Bragging about middle income status because foreign companies are exporting more copper at our expense is sheer stupi.dity.
What is needed is to adopt an approach similar to the Village Concept of the Heritage Party (HP).
This concept, however is already being persued by the RB administration, and I commend them for that.
The rural area one major economic activity which is being quickly developed, which is FARMING. It is also interesting to note that clinics and schools and roads are equally being extended to the rural areas, and that is a great positive (+ve).
When agriculture grows (which is the main economic activity for the rural community at present) the wealth that is in town will transfer to the rural community because the guy in town needs to eat. Roads will improve access to and fro, and the clinics and schools will also address socio-economic issues of the rural population. So RB, keep it up.
Good comment by CSPR. This is what we should be debating on in the election year. Much more in fact. Work ethics in our country, dependency syndrome, absence of clean water for all, absence of secondary industries (cottage industries say) to use copper for instance, as raw material and create jobs, etc… But instead we spend so much time playing abstract politics on already established issues, thus bringing no new benefit to us, like parentage issues, character assassinations, ego trips etc…etc. Its like a bunch of overgrown school boys and girls. Meantime, voiceless people like the child in above photo continue to suffer quietly. Where is the salt in us?
China as an example is reported to be experiencing food shortage and can not produce enough to feed its population…the reason advanced is that most of the young people are leaving the country side to get jobs in town hence not enough people are int farming!
We need to develop our agricultural based industries and encourage people to farm or else every Zambian will one day be living in town looking for a job and there will not be enough people farming to feed the nation.
Zambia is having one of the worst urban drifts seen lately! This is worsening poverty levels and piling too much pressure on social services in urban areas. Any reasonable politician should seek to address this.
# 9 I am not trying to defend laziness but do you realise how difficult it is to get a business loan in zambia for ordinary people in zambia? The citizen economical empowerment council is purely there for political gains and bafoonic leaders. I speak from experience here. I have gone to zambia with money sourced abroad and asked to develop certain areas on ppp arrangement but I have not seen the light. To my surprise these jobs have been given to the Chinese . This is not being lazy on my part and Zambians but a failure by govt to incentivise its citizens to be productive. I live in England and I can the majority the English people are lazier than ordinary zambians.7
I hear you with 70-80 % unemplyment most Zambians are in the informal sector doing what is popularly called “Tamanga” how else do you think the vast majority survives. When you are coming from the diaspora with a business concept you will hit a brick wall in the form of government bureaucracy and corruption, i had the unfortunate incident of applying for land in LSK and KT for a project i wanted to under take with a pre approved venture capital from the UK … the rest is history.. It does not make sense that local entrepreneurs are sidelined over foreign entrepreneurs.
when i look at low level countries we are definiately better than them……….sine we have finally stablised our economy to the point that its growing…….the time has come to start improving the social indicators to acceptable levels………….
From the tone of writing Its looks engineer (australia) is a full blown MMD cadre. are you?
No 16 i am not an MMD cadre i support good economic policies… no country on earth has attained economic freedom in 90 days… if that happens SATA will be awarded The Noble prize in economics.
Middle to low income s.hit!!
Zambians are hard workers. They survive with out being paid for being unemployed. They struggle to feed their families, most of them on less than the minimum wage. Beggars? You haven’t seen beggars. We don’t have cardboard or black plastic sheet shanties in Zambia. Why? Because they can all afford to pay rentals ranging from K50pin per month to whatever you want it to be. Zambians are strong, tolerant poor people that deserve a salute. I salute you tamanga people!
What is Sata’s position on mines windfall tax. Is he going to re-introduce them? How about GRZ dependence on donor aid, is PF foing to reduce or eradicate it? The MMD have shown failed to steer the nation from the shameful and retrogressive dependency syndrome.
What do other opposition parties say about the above?
All those saying Zambians are lazy, please explain what you mean.
In the UK, people who cant find work receive unemployment allowances from the govt. Other receive incapacity benefits if they are not able bodied. Farmers are subsidised and some are paid for not planting crops. In short they govt takes care of everyone in one way or other except those who go to work.
In Zambia we dont have such social security system and opportunities are even fewer. While some people may be lazy, it may not be fair to say “Zambians are lazy” when in reality there are no opportunities for them.
14, Good debate, Its sad that we have ended up mixing politics and economic- Politics and Engineering- Wish we took a different turn on politics for the sake of development. maybe there is just too much democracy in Zambian or Democracy come in too early.
I run a small business and I dont know how many people I have replaced because of leisure and pleasure and laziness, people want to get 100% salary for 10% work done. This is were i based my point.
At # 17, The engineer (Australia) thank you for your kind answer, much appreciated.
I hear you with 70-80 % unemplyment most Zambians are in the informal sector doing what is popularly called “Tamanga” how else do you think the vast majority survives. When you are coming from the diaspora with a business concept you will hit a brick wall in the form of government bureaucracy and corruption, i had the unfortunate incident of applying for land in LSK and KT for a project i wanted to under take with a pre approved venture capital from the UK … the rest is history.. It does not make sense that local entrepreneurs are sidelined over foreign entrepreneurs
‘poverty’ thats what zambia is mostly famous of across its boaders,the economy is booming but still nothing is happening to the lives of the citizen,bumper harvest when people in villages and compounds [makomboni] are still crying of hunger.the deep cause of all this is  unfair distribution of resources and poor governance in the minds of our political leaders.no political leader is going to change this because all of them where once in govt and they failed,try to learn from other  3rd world countries the governance and resource distribution system
Bushe wat are the recent rural and urban poverty levels before i can comment the middle income thing
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