Zambia has received a loan of 336 billion Kwacha from France to finance the rehabilitation of the Great East Road. Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda said that the total cost of rehabilitating the Great East Road is 1.5 trillion Kwacha.
He said this in Lusaka on Thursday after a signing ceremony for the loan with French Ambassador to Zambia, Marie Annick Bourdin. Mr Chikwanda said that the rehabilitation of the Great east road will be co-financed by European Investment bank which will contribute 505.6 billion Kwacha and the African Development Bank with 495.5 billion Kwacha.
The European Development Fund will contribute 240.1 billion Kwacha as a project grant to the rehabilitation of Great east road. France’s contribution to the project is made through the French development agency through a concessional loan of 336 billion Kwacha.
Mr chikwanda said that the Great East Road is an important road that will boost trade and investment in Eastern Province and Zambia in general. He also noted that it is an alternative route to the sea and to the promotion of regional trade through the nacala corridor.
And French Ambassador to Zambia, Marie Annick Bourdin said France is committed to providing oversees development assistance despite the eurozone debt crisis. She said the rehabilitation of the Great esst road will help in providing mobility for goods and services within zambia and the region.
Meanwhile the French development agency Regional Representative Jean Michel Debrat said the agency will extend its financing to the development of the Ithezhi Thezi power generation and transmission project.
ZNBC
More debt
Good move infrastructure development creates jobs, now give jobs to youths, graduates to work on this project.
good work bwana chikwanda
Yes ..use the mone wisely. Dont steal it guys. You should employ the youths so that they have more money in their pockets.
bullshit! f u c k them zambians!
Ba Kabolala!!!!
by 2016 Zambia will have so much debt and will not be able to service the loans and thats when Europe shall take over Zambia again……!!!!!!
please do not give the contract to sable.
How about the Mongu-Kalabo road? No money ka?
The National Debt continues to rise, even when the price of our copper is high on stock market…slowing heading back to the dependence syndrome…. so no more quoting in dollars or Euros to see how much we actually own them.
*edit to ** how much we actually owe them.
Tell It Like It Is
Good point …yet Cashew Nuts and Rice are going to waste in Kalabo due to bad road transport links!!
I thought proper english was supposed to be Zambia borrows from France for great east road rehabilitation. When you say Zambia receives it sound more like a grant. Well as others have said more debt, Infrastructure development only makes sense if it results in revenue generation, however since this is a rehabilitation of an old road, i see no revenue generation unless they are going to toll the road.
You are 100% right !
I also often find LT’s titles unnecessarily long.I’ve never come accross other online papers with such whole sentences as headline.
Shame!when will Mongu road be improved? useless tribalist! And pliz those trillions are confusing us can u quote in dollars period.
Zambia is a loan lover or could this be some sort of addiction? What does this country do with all the loans it keeps acquiring in the name of development when no or just little development is seen from those huge loans? It surely is more money in some people’s pockets.
PLZ MR CHIKWANDA MAKE SURE THAT SABLE TRANSPORT DOES NOT BRIBETHEIIR WAY TO GET THE CONTRACT FROM THE MINISTERY OF ROAD AND TRANSPORT LIKE HE WAS DOING IN THE RUPIA REGIME, THIS COMPANY ARE JUST TRANSPORTERS AND ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO DO ROAD WORKS.ONE MUST HAVE LOOK AT THE DODGY WORK THEY HAVE DONE ON CHIPATA ROAD FROM SINDA TO PETAUKE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT I AM SAYING. AND THE MMD PAID THEM BILLIONS OF KWACHAS JUST TO FILL UP POT HOLES WITH SAND AND STOBES. SABLE TRANSPORT ARE PLUNDERERS.OF ZAMBIAN TAX PAYERS MONEY.
This story says the project costs K1.5 trillion. Grants and loans have been obtained for K1.5772 trillion. Where is the extra money (roughly US$13,111,111.11) going? That’s a lot of money for CocaCola I would say.
My math ( in billions of kwacha):
1,500 project cost
Less
336 loan from France
505.6 EIB loan
495.5 ADB loan
240.1 EDF grant
———————
1,577.2 amount amassed
Leaving 77.2 over/5400 kwacha to the dollar is $13,111,111.11.
Count your change Zambia!
We should not be using loans to maintain roads. We should have enough revenue for us to annually budget for this expense
SORRY FOR THE ERROR IN SPELLING STONES IT SHOULD BE READ AS SAND AND STONES ..
Road maintenance is an expensive endeavour. Hope the money will be properly used and the repairs to last long.
#12 Tekton, I couldn’t agree with you more on the Toll issue. RDA and government need to study how they can install a toll system for the major roads in Zambia. The revenue from the toll would be a source of funding for maintenance and rehab of these roads instead of reliance on loans/grants from foreign sources. This would free up alot of money the government allocates for road construction and rehab. Excess funds could be used to “tar” feeder roads, resulting in increased traffic to remote areas and thereby increasing total revenue for the mainline highways. That is the future of the Transportation Industry and Zambia should start on feasibility studies and make highways self reliant and a possible source of funds for the government.
Zambia charges fuel levy for the purpose of road maintenance. From what I hear, the charges are very high and much higher than what we would get from the Road Toll. Unless we are prepared for double payment.
This is the time to be constructing fresh routes to get to the East day directly from the Copperbelt or something and find alternative ways to maintain the existing roads.
We as a country don’t in this day and age need European loans with a multitude of conditionality… These are the countries that devastated our economy during the 1980s and 1990s IMF and World Band structural Adjustments programs… They offer you loans based on a Western model( Imperialists).
We just have to consolidate our Eastern ties(China) who renders and gives you loans at zero or very low interests rates without conditions.
The WEST have always seen us as a people interior to them…. Its high time we embraced our ties with China!
REHABILITATION? Olemekezeka a President Sata, akulu a gulu la Patritric Front, anati uza kuti azatipatsa DUAL CARRIAGE WAY ku dela la kum’mawa kwa Zambia.
Another broken promise.
Rehabilitation is not construction.
More loans year in year out but projects for which they are meant do not get completed let alone get started, meanwhile the billions just disappear.
Promote local contractors so that the dollar does not end up where it came from. Just insure the job is done properly and money is not stollen by both the govt officials like kapoko and the contractors themselves.
Sable nafuti nafuti……
And the K14 billion being kept by Mumembe and Nchito can go a long way in patching up pot holes in Livingstone.
RBs initiative. No sane organisation can give PaFwaka (PF) such huge amount of money. I end here!
Make it a dual carriage way to avoid those nasty accidents that take place all over the country. PF should be counted for some development. Making roads from Chipata to Mongu and Livingstone to Nakonde dual carriage roads will give them a boost of confidence and maybe win them the next election.
Why is France lending money, when their economy is struggling. There is Irony in this question.
Lending of money is business, they get returns from that there are more benefits to the lender than to the borrower,, that is these people make money when they lend money
into debt we go. How does grz hope to service THIS loan? I would think that they would RAISE the money from the existing road taxes, etc.
Back to HIPC we go.
MORE DEBT,MAINTAINANCE COSTS WHO WILL DO THAT SINCE ZAMBIANS ARE ABD AT MAINTAINANCE,CHECK KAFUE TOAD FRO LINDA TOWNSHIP INTO LUSAKA TOWN?
PLEASE PLEASE no part of contract should go to SABLE.A Company of transporters turned into road contractors overnight under RUPIAS regime.SABLE have no skill to contract road works.So sad to see SABLE still on the job in and around Chipata from contracts reaped by corrupting corrupt RUPIA BANDA.
Why borrow money whereas looters owe Zed hundreds of millions of dollars…?? very amazing from the the so-called anti-corruption govt
MMD, UPND and PF are the same gang of crooks
—
According to NGOs in its pilot audit by Grant Thornton, Zambia and Econ Poyry, Zambia lost an estimated income of USD 175 million in tax revenue between 2003 and 2008 from tax avoidance practices’ by Glencore AG International owned Mopani Copper Mines.
copper from Mopani is sold under a contract with copper in one instance being sold at 25 per cent of official prices at LME. In other words, they are not paying taxes over 75% of the copper sold to Glencore.Moreover, in the report by Action Aid, which Mopani has described as flawed and incomplete draft added that the Zambian government (ZCCM-ih)
continued
may probably be losing USD 50 million annually on dividend payments from its 10% stake in Mopani Copper Mines.”
What a mess ! what a scam !
we are now doing what kaunda did by making the loan which acculated to 7.3 billion dollas. the govt should be asking for grants not loan because we are required to pay back with interest
You have trillions worth of copper being stolen in broad day light and the so called road and carbon tax going to pay for ministers cars and benefits. Have you no shame to borrow money from Europe to build a road? How come Zambian country lanes as they would call them in europe cost more than a european Motorway equivalent? These journalists needs to dig deeper cause this is how the young generation will be left with huge debts to pay off when these selfish politicians are long gone. This is how money is diverted on the pretence that it’s doing some good