The Ministry of Tourism and Arts says the capture of live animals in South Luangwa National Park is meant to facilitate restocking of depleted or under stocked national parks or wildlife areas.

Ministry spokesperson Sakabilo Kalembwe said the capture of animals is not for export of animals to other countries, but to benefit the wildlife estates in Zambia in line with the Seventh National Development Plan.

Mr Kalembwe said the capture area is South Luangwa National Park and not the Game Management Area where communities are co-partners in wildlife managing and benefit sharing.

He said the Minister of Tourism and Arts issued capture permits to three game ranches between August 2018 and April 2019 to capture live animals in the South Luangwa National Park. This was in

Mr Kalembwe said the three game ranches are Witpens, Mbizi game ranch owned by Mr Micheal we Gre-Dejestam; and Munyama game ranches

He said Mbizi game ranch has not paid for the animals as the game ranch is an open and adjacent to the South National Park meaning that animals at this ranch are state property.

Mr Kalembwe said in a statement that animals at this ranch move in and out of the National Park to the ranch and therefore cannot be owned by Mbizi game ranch.

He said contrary to the speculation on social media, the total number of animals to be captured in South Luangwa National Park is 127, broken down as follows: 10 impalas, 10 waterbucks, 12 zebras, 15 warthogs, 30 pukus and 50 buffalos.

Mr Kalembwe said the wildlife population survey conducted in the South Luangwa Park in 2015 indicated that population estimates of these species were impalas 10,873; waterbucks 1,106; warthogs 1,029; pukus 4,146; and buffalos 3,808. Therefore, the total animals to be removed will have no significant impact on the populations in the Park.

He said reason In the next two to three years, there will be no capture of live animals from National Parks for private game ranches. However, the government will continue to capture animals from National Parks with health populations and restock other understocked National Parks or community wildlife areas in line with the 7NDP.

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has again projected that the Patriotic Front is likely to retain power in 2021 but warned that the government will become increasingly unpopular as a result of economic mismanagement and deepening autocracy.

According to its latest country report for Zambia, the EIU projected that PF would retain power after the 2021 polls but warned that the country would face substantial threats and simmering popular frustration over economic and political grievances, which might turn violent.

The run-up to the 2021 legislative and presidential elections will be an especially unstable period, during which a vulnerable government will narrow the political space aggressively and escalate crackdowns.

“The run-up to the 2021 legislative and presidential elections will be an especially unstable period, during which a vulnerable government will narrow the political space aggressively and escalate crackdowns. In late August, Zambia’s Registrar of Societies banned the National Democratic Congress (NDC), a small opposition party, which broke away from the ruling PF [after the 2016 elections]. The Zambian authorities are frequently accused by opposition parties of influencing the agency’s decisions. The NDC unsettled the PF in April by winning a by-election for the Roan Parliamentary constituency in Copperbelt Province, a PF stronghold. Its deregistration was therefore seen as an attempt to reinforce the ruling party’s hold on power. Such moves will undermine political stability by feeding into public fears that Zambia is staggering towards autocracy, exacerbating underlying social tensions. Another layer of potential risk emanates from the burgeoning influence of China in Zambia’s affairs, with growing popular suspicion that to secure debt relief, the government plans to sell key state assets to China,” EIU reported.

And EIU projected that Zambia’s fiscal policy between now and the year 2021 would remain unsustainable.

“We continue to forecast that spending will remain unsustainably high in 2019-21, albeit declining as a share of GDP from 2021 onwards, owing to stronger nominal GDP growth that year. In 2019-21, expenditure will remain driven by foreign-debt-financed capital outlays and debt servicing. Spending as a whole will drop significantly onwards from 2022, following elections in 2021.”

“Only in 2022, with foreign liquidity pressures mounting will capital spending be cut back, and high debt-servicing costs will continue to crowd out wage spending and subsidies. We expect revenue to fall in 2019 (in nominal terms) as an increase in mineral royalty rates (plus a new top rate), a delay in implementing a new sales tax until January 2020 and the scrapping of VAT rebates for mining companies backfires, with the sector reducing output. However, rising copper prices during 2020-23 will encourage a gradual recovery in production and raise overall revenues during the 2020-23 period (the slowing of the Chinese economy amid escalating global trade tensions represents a downside risk to this forecast),” EIU reported.

Former Finance Minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane has charged that the 2020 Budget will not achieve anything tangible because it is a budget for merely paying public service workers’ salaries and servicing national debt.

Dr Musokotwane who is also UPND Chairman for Finance says the budget will be difficult to implement because there is no money for anything else that matters to the ordinary citizen.

In his detailed analysis of the 2020 national budget, Dr Musokotwane said it’s clear from the 2020 Budget that the PF Government has completely abandoned the fiscal consolidation stance that they announced in 2017 under a programme entitled “Zambia Plus” but which they did not respect in the subsequent budgets in 2018 and 2019.

He observed that the PF Government is not slowing down on debt contraction despite the warning not only from the various local stakeholders and the public but also from reputable international organizations such as the IMF and the World Bank.

“We wonder where and how the PF Government will manage to raise the proposed revenues in the 2020 Budget given the current economic haemorrhage and particularly given energy challenges to which, the PF Government have no clue on how they will be addressed apart from blaming it on climate change,” Dr Musokotwane stated.

“The PF Government proposes to raise K106.01 billion through tax revenues (K53.77 billion), non-tax revenues (K17.71 billion) and financing or borrowing (K34.08 billion) as shown in the Table below. (All figures are in millions of Kwacha). Of the total expenditure of K106 billion, the expenditure on Wages and Salaries (Personal Emoluments) will at minimum be K25.60 billion (estimated since no details were given in the Budget Address), debt payment (interest and amortization) will account for K33.73 billion (up by 10.15 billion from 2019 budget) while grants to grant aided institutions such as ZRA, RTSA (which basically are for salaries) will amount to K7.34 billion while the foreign financed expenditure (K30.62 billion) is project support, which will be specifically for the projects for which the money will be borrowed. The government has no discretion on the above expenditure. They must be paid. They are non-discretionary.”

“If we add other politically sensitive expenditures, which are FISP (K1.11 billion), FRA (K660 million) and elections & voter registration (K135 million), a total of K99.21 billion out of the K106 billion will have been taken by these expenditure lines which in budget terminology are called non-discretionary expenditures.”

He added, “Strictly speaking this means that the only amount in the Budget that Government has some discretion on how it can be spent in the 2020 Budget is K6.80 billion. This is the amount envisaged to be used for Government operations, for dismantling of arrears, for providing counterpart funding for capital expenditure, for provision of the social cash transfer to our vulnerable in society, as well as providing health and education services.”

“If we take the Government commitment of K2.28 billion for dismantling of arrears, K2.77 billion Government contribution towards infrastructure development, K1 billion for the Public Service Pension Fund and another K1 billion for the Social Cash transfer, it means we will already have gone over the budget.”

He stated, “In his Budget address, the Minister of Finance stated that the government in 2020 planned to make interventions to improve the social economic conditions of the citizens. Examples include support to agriculture and livestock industries, establishing industrial yards, developing road infrastructure in the northern tourist circuits, recruitment of teachers, etc. Further, it was our expectation that the government would take practical steps to address the plight of the population faced with unprecedented hunger that has befallen nearly half the country.”

“How will the Government then finance its operations, provide medical services as well as education services to its citizenry?”

He charged that the 2020 Budget, though well presented will not deliver the intended results.

Dr Musokotwane said this is a budget whose major priorities are public service salaries and debt service.

“Although the budget has a substantial sum of K30.1 billion most of this will be spent on pre-selected major infrastructure projects like the two airports in Lusaka and Ndola. Vital but smaller projects such as the numerous abandoned rural projects such as district roads, feeder roads, high schools, teachers’ houses, etc will continue to remain abandoned.”

Dr Musokotwane projected that business will continue to be hard because the promised improvement in liquidity in the economy through payment of arrears owed by the government is too little and also uncertain.

He said Government departments will continue to be underfunded and new business from the government will be hard because there is no money.

“These are the biting effects of the debt crisis that we have been warning about and they affect everyone. Sadly, the 2020 Budget is mute on how to seriously address this major crisis that has engulfed our nation,” he said.

Senior Chief Mukuni of Kazungula, Livingstone and Zimba Districts in Southern Province, has condemned what he has termed as the coordinated theft of wildlife in the North Luangwa, South Luangwa and the Kafue National Parks by the PF government.

The Traditional Leader has called on fellow traditional leaders in the affected areas, to galvanize their Chiefdoms to stop the wanton robbery of their heritage, by ensuring that the looters are removed from office in the 2021 election.

Senior Chief Mukuni who was speaking at his Palace in Livingstone, called on Chiefs to be inspired by the plunder of the national resources by the PF, into galvanizing their subjects on the importance of voting them out.

“I would like to add my unchained voice to the lamentation of the traditional authorities surrounding North Luangwa, South Luangwa and the Kafue National Parks, over the government-sponsored abduction and plunder of wild animals, by greed and shameless PF regime looters. These people know very well that they do not have the named National Parks’ host communities’ support, in the ongoing conversion from wildlife public good to wildlife private good. This is criminally for the exclusive benefit of Zambia’s version of the South African Guptas, who have by corrupt means monopolized the wildlife hunting business in Zambia”, said Senior Chief Mukuni.

He expressed shock at what he described as PF’s cavalier attitude towards national resources which is troubling, disheartening and beyond the pale, and that it needs to be immediately checked before Zambians lose their heritage.

Senior Chief Mukuni said the PF has supplied enough straw to the hayloft in all areas of public interest in Zambia and have subsequently squandered goodwill of the citizens.

“We know the truth, we see the truth and we therefore refuse to believe the lies that the exercise is carried out to beef up the stocks for non existent Government owned Game Ranches”, added the traditional Leader.

He said this desperation comes from the realization that time is fast running out for their unwelcome continued stay in office, and they are prepared to stand their grounds using the infamous constitutional (amendment) Bill number 10 of 2019.

The Senior Chief regretted that President Edgar Lungu wasted valuable time to redeem himself into a unifying leader when he rejected the Church Mother Bodies’ led dialogue.

“The President’s lack of foresight exposed him as a greedy person with no interest of moving Zambia forward. He instead opted to deal with one man parties with no roots in the democratic will of the Zambian people. To fellow Chiefs, the arrogant theft of our people’s heritage should be a clarion call for them to realise that it is their responsibility to galvanize their Chiefdoms to remove the PF from office through an emphatic no confidence vote in 2021”, said Senior Chief Mukuni.

President Edgar Chagwa Lungu has warned ministers and some senior PF officials from Lusaka to desist from abusing the 20 percent contracts allocation to locals.

Speaking at the Airport shortly before departure for Lusaka at the Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe International Airport in Ndola on Sunday Afternoon, the President said that he has information that some Ministers and party officials are taking advantage of the sub contraction allocation policy.

“I do not want to get reports that people from Lusaka especially ministers and senior officials in the party are insisting on getting 20 percent when they are not even eligible. That is the corruption we do not want,” President said.

The President directed the Copperbelt Minister Japhen Mwakalombe, Provincial Chairperson Nathan Chanda and Provincial Permanent Secretary Bright Nundwe to work has team and sit down with the contractors and others to ensure that guidelines were framed over the 20 percent subcontracting policy.

He said the intention of the 20 percent sub-contraction policy was to benefit the people.

“I have heard that some party officials, Ministers and other people from Lusaka want to withhold the contracts. The intention is that the contracts should be distributed so that other Zambians can benefit so I want Copperbelt Minister Japhen Mwakalombe, Permanent secretary Bright Nundwe and Copperbelt Chairperson Nathan Chanda to sit together with others and ensure that there is fairness and equity in giving of the 20 percent subcontracts,” President Lungu said.

President Lungu said he will be back on the Copperbelt in October and wants to find order.