By Antonio Mwanza
1. THE TAX HOLIDAY ON FUEL IS ENDING IN JUNE
A lot of people are not aware that the only reason why fuel prices have not yet hit the K30 mark per litre is that the UPND Government has maintained the tax waiver that ECL introduced last year; ECL removed both Excise Duty and VAT on all oil products in order to maintain low fuel prices.
This tax waiver is coming to an end on 31st June 2022. With the pressure for money and with the pressure to please the IMF for the pending 1.6 billion dollar Kaloba, it is most likely that President Sammy will have no choice but to scrap off the waiver. Once VAT and Excise duty are re-introduced, the fuel prices will immediately shoot up to at-least K30 per litre.
2. JOBS AND BUSINESSES
Fuel is the blood that runs the economy. Without fuel the economy collapse. High cost of fuel means high cost of production; this will lead to low production and productivity, reduced forex, high cost of living, loss of jobs and a worsening unemployment situation leading to mass poverty.
3. DOES ZAMBIA HAVE THE MONEY TO SUBSIDISE FUEL?
Let me clear a few things before we even go far:
a) President Sata, removed fuel subsidies on fuel in 2013, there are no fuel subsidies that President Sammy removed on fuel, that was simply a punka story.
b) Fuel subsidies are not for consumption but for production because fuel is the key factor of production.
There is no economy, small or big that doesn’t subsidise certain strategic economic tools or economic sectors. Subsidies can be used to cushion the burden on the poor or to reduce the cost of production as well as the cost of doing business with the aim of increasing productivity in order to create jobs, reduce poverty and grow the economy.
The question is do we have the money to subsidise fuel? The answer is YES;
President Sammy has given mines, tax holidays at a time the copper prices are at their historical highest.
If President Sammy scraps off the tax holidays he has given his corporate mining friends, we will be able to raise about 1.2 billion dollars per annum from the mines. This is the money we need right now to pay for subsidies and inject in the economy to increase productivity, create jobs, increase forex and grow the economy.
So let President Sammy scrap off the tax holidays he has given his mining friends and re-introduce fuel subsidies in order to save and grow the economy.
People are stressed, kuli ma pressure muma komboni; there is no money in this economy, it is dry and the cost of living is going higher and higher.
Ba President save the economy before it’s too late, scrap off the tax holidays you have given the mines and use that money to pay for subsidies on fuel and grow the economy.
One can only escape the rising fuel prices by controlling your own destiny: GET SOLAR. One-off investment and then power is FREE FOR LIFE.
ALL SPECULATION AS USUAL
WITH ALL THESE SO CALLED FINANCIAL BRAINS
Have they got nothing better to do than speculate, ?
Absolute rubbish.
We all know that the Kaloba ($14 billion) that ECL and the PF left for Zambia is chocking our fragile economy.
Other external factors such as the war in Europe have worsened things world over.
We are not dull like the average PF cadre who gave an ear to your lies for 7+ years.
Keep that nonsense to yourself
Rubbish………
Alaaa TU upnd chaps… fuel is expensive and you are saying rubbish… Very heartless
In all this, PF will never be an option, let us get this right first
FDD ambassador to defunct PF is still talking
The war is devastating on the world economy. Some people have allegedly stolen public funds and so on and so forth.
While we must by now seek answers, some people are busy living in the past as if to say: Let’s fold our hands because there is no solution.
Current Prices of fuel in select African Countries
South Africa R21.9 (K26.5)
Zimbabwe ZWD213.9(K42.2)
Malawi MWK1,200 (K26.3)
Rwanda RWF1,256.000(K23.1)
Burundi BIF2,700.000(K24)
PF must stop lying to the nations
The second you mentioned “President Sammy” I knew you were going to be doing nothing but writing complete rubbish.
Please give me back the time it took me to read this article. What a joke.
This guy speaks like the blades of a helicopter total rubbish dust bin politics
GARRULOUS ANTONEEYO IS A BITTER MAN. PF INASILA MWANA. IN PF YOU ARE LIKE A HOUSE FLY THAT HAS FOLLOWED THE CORPSE INTO THE GRAVE. CHAMGAMUKA!
A whole lot of empty drivel masquerading as finacial & market expertise .
If you pipo hadn’t stolen money through dubious contracts and tenders such as inflated road and toll gates contracts, purchasing items at 5 times their true value such as fire tenders, stolen mukula funds running into billions, buying foreign embassy buildings at $400,000 but remitting $2 million and countless others which we still do not know about which went into personal pockets of cadres such as faith musonda then maybe we would have had enough money to subsidize fuel.
Well atleast no matter how you complain we will never give your Tantamene government a shot at statehouse again. Cos we know that you are talking all this crap for political mileage. Its not Genuine. Bunch of clouts.
Comparing regional fuel prices will do little to us. We are well schooled let us go back to the drawing board and do the required thinking. Thinking is painful but inevitably our only way out. scapegoats won’t help either.
Let it get to 100 kwacha so that the f00Is who voted in an incompetent govt learn a lesson
Indeed fuel could be subsidized for those who were ‘priviledged’ to place spouses on parastatal payrolls without working….but with that gone the speculation echoes….its hard to listen to direct beneficiaries of a regime that brought a culture never before seen in our land
LT there is no June 31 only 30 days in June get your facts straight
Its ok even if the fuel reaches K100 per liter, as long money meant to subsidize fuel is not going in people`s pocket like it was the case under PF regime bakapyopyo bonse like you and the like of Boman used to play with money at the expenses of the zambians. The good thing HH is not worried about the next election like you used to be with you boss, all he want is to control your damages. So yateka pansi iwe Ka Mwaza!
Iwe chi stinky troll #17 your PF took us from 7.5% GDP growth to a minus 2% recession in yr 2020.That was real incompetence for 10yrs.