2020 described as challenging year

ANDREW MUKOMAwrites @SunZambianAS the year 2020 heads towards it’s end, a Non Governmental Organization in Choma, the Provincial Capital of Southern Province has described the year 2020 as a year of serious uncertainties.Youth Development Organization (YDO) has said that 2020 has been a year with occurrences such as Covid-19 which disrupted the World economic trajectory.YDO Executive Director Partner Siabutuba has observed that the whole economic progress many countries had made, got reversed.Mr Siabutuba said that the death toll within 100 days of Covid-19 went beyond what the World ever experienced before.In an exclusive interview with the Daily Nation in Livingstone, Mr Siabutuba said that Zambia as a developing country was at economic crossroads as all the borders were inaccessible this led to increased cost of leaving for people due to shortage of goods imported.“Government tried to realign the economy by putting in various packages but World economic fundamentals didn’t respond obviously because the biggest economies were the worst hit by the pandemic,” he said.“Off course there is a lot to learn from; we need as a country to build our reserves to increase survival span. Just a few months of Covid-19, our economy was already on its kneesWe need to invest in manufacturing to be able to produce raw materials to run our local industries even if borders were to be closed for six months,” he observed.The YDO Executive Director further added that the country needs to come up with robust social protection policy beyond looking at the poor only.“Covid-19 taught us that there comes a time when everyone becomes economically vulnerable and the state must provide. The lock down could not be effected in Zambia because we didn’t know how to manage it,” he said.And Mr Siabutuba recalled that within this year, 2020, Zambia experienced gassing activities the situation which left a number of innocent people killed in mob justice.“Again our domestic economic activities came to a halt. We still need a comprehensive report from Zambia Police on what this gassing s really was,” he saidMr Siabutuba charged that all these experiences put together saw an increase in inflation, poor kwacha performance, increased poverty levels and vulnerability among our citizens.“Our government struggling to handle public debt etc. We are not certain about the future because our current situation has a huge bearing on our future national economic prospects,” he said.