President Hichilema addresses the nation

President Hichilema held a press conference this morning to inform the country on his three tactics to ease the strain caused by the sixth-month drought in Zambia.

The first plan of action he discussed was a budget realignment to place more focus on the issues caused by the drought. The cabinet, as well as the Minister of Finance and National Planning have agreed to realign the 2024 national budget, amending it to ‘look at each ministry, see the budget that was allocated to it in 2024 […] and say […] “that […] was not needed.”’

The president went on to discuss water security and supply. A direct result of drought is lack of access to water; the president stressed that providing access to ‘water for drinking, for cooking, for animals’ remained of tantamount importance to the government. His plan of action being to renegotiate and lower the price of water, that currently stands at around K45,000.

Finally, President Hichilema brought up Zambia’s energy priorities, primarily the need to increase measures to support the fight against the energy crisis. These measures include ensuring hospitals and universities maintain a constant power supply, as well as blending the tariff of energy from the energy committee to supply the excess to public hospitals. He also introduced the idea of allowing private citizens to generate their own power, through solar or even wind energy, to give them the opportunity to sell any excess energy to increase supply.