Page 56 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 17

Innovate Afrika

Mongu-Kalabo Road.
This road spans the
Barotse floodplain on tion, there is absolutely nothing
the Zambezi River wrong.
in western Zambia.
Completed in 2016 it The government now 2021-2026 is
incorporates 26 bridges moving into the micro food securi-
and is 34km long. ty,income levels for the people.”
During the same interview Mr
Chanda was grilled on the soar-
ing inflation and asked to respond
roads, bridges, airports and com- to complaints from residents of
mercial and residential construction, Lusaka that they now had very good
Chinese company, AVIC Interna-
tional. The ultra-modern airport’s Mr Chanda replied: roads and airports but could not
design includes a 12,000 square “These are the pre-requisites for afford food and could not eat roads.
metre terminal building which can investment. One thing the govern- His comment was:
accommodate one million passen- ment realized when we came in
gers. 2011, one thing we realized is that “Actually you can eat roads because
delapedated infrastructure, wheth- there was this story of a bumper
er that is roads,water networks, harvest that all got wasted because
Urban Development
airports, was impacting on devel- no one could get there produce to
opment, as it were. That 3 million the markets in good time.”
Recent years have seen a boom in
the construction sector in Zambia Zambians were being treated to a
with the building of shopping malls, power infrastructure, that remained He is quite right in saying that.
up-market hotels, residential areas stagnant for 40 years. More than 90% of the Democratic
and office blocks. Construction is Republic of Congo has no infra-
currently the largest industrial sector So we have had to put 750MW of structure, roads or railways. There
of Zambia comprising 27.5% of the power because there has been an everyone says: we want the roads
GDP with a growth rate of 12% in expansion in industry, mining, so because it is the roads that feed us.
2016.This has led to a growth of you have got to invest in infrastruc- Hard infrastructure is Africa`s
Zambian construction companies ture.There has been an expansion primary need. A true friend of Af-
and companies supplying building in wheat growing, tobacco growing rica are those who build roads and
materials. It has increased the de- and all those things are powered by railways.
mand for professional employment energy as the center pivot.
such as architects and engineers and Whatever the causes of the change
construction workers. You cannot have a public infrastruc- in government may be, I, for one,
ture that does not correlate with the think the most likely cause for any
population. foreign interfence from Westminster
The National Heroes Stadium is a
new multi-purpose stadium in Lusa- and Washington in Zambia`s elec-
ka which seats 60 000 spectators. There are only 2 ways of raising tions is that in 2018, the Governor
money, whether at a personal level of the Bank of Zambia, Dr Denny
or a national level or business, it is Kalyalya, in his `Monetary Policy
Conclusion
While it remains most likely that either debt or equity.If you do not Committee Statement for fourth
money has been squandered and have equity, you have got to go into quarter 2018`,put forward the pro-
corruption has been present under debt. If that debt is invested into posal to use the Yuan instead of the
Edgar Lungu, he has at least contin- production rather than consump- US dollar as the reserve currency.
ued building the road to prosperity.
The Simon Mwansa
Kapwepwe Interna-
In a recent interview, Amos Chanda,
Campaign Spokesman for the Patri- tional Airport at
otic Front, defended the policies of Ndola was financed
Edgar Lungu`s government. Asked by China`s EXIM
about the rapid development taking Bank and designed and
place in and around Lusaka, new constructed by Chinese
company, AVIC
International.

56 | we tell the true afrikan story