TEN QUESTIONS TO THE HONORABLE MINISTER OF FINANCE ON THE 2026 NATIONAL BUDGET
By Sean Tembo – PeP President and TONSE ALLIANCE Spokesperson
Dear Honorable Minister. Thank you for your presentation of the 2026 National Budget to Parliament yesterday. However, l have the following few questions for you:
1. In paragraph 18 of your budget presentation, you have rated yourself very highly regarding the performance of the 2025 national budget. However, Honorable Minister, if the performance of the 2025 national budget is as good as you wish to portray it, can you explain to the nation why farmers who sold their maize to Government, more than 4 months ago, have still not been paid, and yet there was a specific budget provision for this expenditure line in the 2025 national budget? Are you aware that farmers are supposed to be preparing their fields by now, and that they need money to do so?
2. In paragraph 18, you argue that the 2025 national budget has so far performed extremely well, and yet in paragraph 19, you admit that the projected budget deficit for 2025 is 4.6% of GDP, or approximately 17% of the budget. Honorable Minister, this means that your Government will fail to attain the revenue budget or will overspend your expenditure targets or both, by a factor of 17% for the 2025 fiscal year. Now, Honorable Minister, can you please explain how such a performance constitutes good performance?
3. In paragraph 20, you are informing the nation that our foreign debt now stands at $15.78 billion. An increase of approximately $4.55 billion, from the $11.23 billion that you found it at when you ascended to office. Now, Honorable Minister, can you please explain what your Government has done with the $4.55 billion which you have borrowed in foreign debt, in the past 8 years? We know that the previous Government borrowed approximately $8.78 billion in foreign debt, during the 10 years that they were in office, and we can see the hospitals, roads, bridges, power stations etcetera, that they built with that money. But what have you built with the $4.55 billion which you have so far borrowed, in external debt over the past 4 years?
4. In paragraph 21, you are informing the nation that the total domesticated debt stood at K242.0 billion as at end of August 2025. This is an increment of K127.7 billion, from the K114.3 billion that it stood at when you ascended to office on 26th August 2021. Honorable Minister, I wish to reiterate my earlier question above; what have you built, that you can point at, with the K127.7 billion which your Government has borrowed in domestic debt, over the past 4 years? I ask because the only notable infrastructure project by your Government so far, is the Lusaka-Ndola dual-carriage way, which is financed by NAPSA money.
5. In paragraph 22 of your national budget presentation, you are informing the nation that your Government owes suppliers of goods and services a total of K84.1 billion. You go on to state that this is a modest increase of K3.3 billion from what you owed the previous year, in 2024. Honorable Minister, when you ascended to office in 2021, the previous PF administration owed supplies of goods and services approximately K28 billion. At that time, your President, Mr Hakainde Hichilema, told the nation that domestic arrears of K28 billion was bad for the economy, and that he would liquidate them within 3 years.
However, 4 years along the road, your Government has not liquidated that K28 billion. Neither have you kept it constant. Instead, you have increased it. Now Government owes suppliers of goods and services, not K28 billion, but K84.1 billion. Honorable Minister, can you please explain to the nation, how this constitutes good performance on your part?
6. In paragraph 23, you are informing the nation that export earnings during the period under review amounted to $8.18 billion, versus imports amounting to $8.21 billion, and that therefore the country recorded a balance of payments deficit. Honorable Minister, are you aware that the main cause of our country’s balance of payments deficit, and by extension, deteriorating exchange rate, is your Government’s high appetite structure contracts in US dollars, instead of Zambian kwacha?
Honorable Minister, our largest imports are fuel, and oil prices during the period under review reduced by approximate 36% to average $74 per barrel. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, the nation was supposed to record a balance of payments surplus and not deficit, had it not been for your Government’s high appetite to price contracts in US dollars instead of Zambia Kwacha.
7. In paragraph 29, among your macroeconomic objectives for 2026, you state that you wish to maintain gross foreign reserves amounting to 4 months of import cover. However, in paragraph 28, you told us that current gross foreign reserves amount to 4.8 months of import cover. Honorable Minister, can you explain why you see it fit to set an economic goal that represents poorer performance when compared to existing performance?
8. Within paragraph 29 again, you are telling the nation that you are targeting a fiscal deficit of 2.1% of GDP for the 2026 fiscal year, or approximately 8% of the national budget. Honorable Minister, you are basically telling us that you intend to fail to achieve your revenue targets and/or overspend your expenditure budget, and/or both. Honorable Minister, can you explain to the nation why you would set a goal for yourself which represents poor performance? Instead of targeting a fiscal deficit, why can’t you target a fiscal surplus?
9. In paragraph 151, you have allocated K4.6 billion towards the so-called “dismantling of domestic arrears”. Suffice to mention that you have allocated a similar figure in each of the previous 4 national budgets that you have presented since 2021, but instead of dismantling the K28 billion domestic arrears that you inherited from the PF, you have instead grown them to K84.1 billion at present. Honorable Minister, can you explain why you keep including a budget line which you have no intention of fulfilling? Is it that it makes you feel nice, even though it is meaningless?
10. In paragraph 175, under the resource envelope, why are you using terms such as “foreign financing” and “domestic financing” instead of calling a spade a spade and not a big spoon? Just call it “debt” and not “financing” because you are borrowing to fund the budget. While we are still on the issue of borrowing to fund the budget, don’t you think those billions of dollars that the country is losing through the tax holidays that you gave to the mines in 2022, can assist to fund the budget? Lastly Honorable Minister, I shall be presenting the PeP 2026 Alternative National Budget, as we have consistently done since 2017, this coming Friday, 3rd October 2025 at Palm Valley Resort in Lusaka, starting at 10hrs. I encourage you to come and attend, so that we can compare notes.
Anyway, TILI TONSE 欄 and the Future is SET ✌
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SET 27.09.2025
I don’t know why our opposition leaders fail to speak the truth. I will just touch two issues on the list Mr. Sean Tembo has put up. Firstly, FRA, only started buying maize end of August this year, so I don’t know how this has become 4 months from August to September. Yes, farmers should be paid in time, but why exaggerate the period? Secondly, the external debt left by PF as of September 2021 was $12.88 billion, not $11.23 billion as claimed by Mr. Tembo. Why can’t people just stick to the facts, instead of making false claims?
BA Straight Forward; Mr. Tembo is right on FRA. They started buying maize early July. You can call them and confirm please..
As a farmer, have also been questioned where the budgeted for cash is. Coz if it’s been released, all those that supplied in July and part of August could have been settled.
Alas, we’re almost in October (4th month), most of farmers who supplied in July haven’t been paid.. When you call FRA, they’re pointing to ministry of finance..
To make matters worse, no one seem concerned from either FRA or government line ministries. No communication so far as to why the status quo has been prolonged..
Please Ba President Tembo twafweni. Put alot of pressure on this one. It’s just too much..
Maybe President HH doesn’t know what’s going on..
Farmers are being paid Sir….
The budget was for 500,000 metric tons but this caring government has so far bought over 1.5million metric tons of maize and is still buying and Paying at the same time….
By October month-end, all farmers shall be paid….
By the way, Farmers have already started accessing their FISP…..
I can confirm to you Michael,I sold my maize in August so did my family.
Macro-economic accounting and financial accounting in a corporation are two different things. Sean Tembo is confusing the two. Before macroeconomic analysis was developed, financial accounting in a corporation was already there with its parochial way of looking at things at micro level. It took a big economic disaster for the managers of modern economies to develop the tools of macroeconomic management.