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(LUSAKATIMES) Miles Sampa asks Dambisa Moyo to get her facts right before making divisive statements

Miles Sampa asks Dambisa Moyo to get her facts right before making divisive statements
TIME PUBLISHED - Sunday, August 26, 2012, 2:58 pm

The government has advised US-based Zambian born writer Dambisa Moyo to have her facts straight on economic issues before making divisive statements that have the ability of painting a bleak picture of the country.

The advice is coming from Miles Sampa, the Deputy Minister of Finance who says Ms Moyo has lately been issuing statements on Zambia’s economy largely based on opinion rather than fact.

“As an economist, Ms Moyo knows that you don’t go around making statements that make the country look bad without facts,” Mr Sampa said, “she has insinuated that investors are wary of coming to Zambia when our in trays are full even as we try to empty them.”

At a recent Economics Association of Zambia discussion forum in Lusaka, Ms Moyo tabulated a shopping list of things she believes have gone bad in Zambia including an unstable economic playground that scares away investors.

But at no time, according to Mr Sampa, did she place a finger on anything tangible or give a scientific example of how investors are now discouraged of coming to Zambia.

“Criticism without facts seems to be the latest avenue for venting personal anger, frustrations and disappointments by people like Ms Moyo,” Mr Sampa said.

Under the previous Rupiah Banda administration when she released her first book Dead Aid, Ms. Moyo was treated like royalty, a trend that led her to land various board positions on multi-national corporations whom she sometimes speaks for.

Ms Moyo’s attacks did not end at investors sounding alarm but she went further to question the Zambian government’s decision to pass a law banning the use of US dollars in domestic transactions which has even been commended by Wall Street Journal analysts.

Mr Sampa said: “If an educated economist cannot appreciate the importance of rebasing our currency, then I wonder whether I should continue pursuing my PHD.”

Mr Sampa said: “If an educated economist cannot appreciate the importance of rebasing our currency, then I wonder whether I should continue pursuing my PHD.”

Ms. Moyo whose two books Dead Aid and her latest cover How the West was Lost have attracted mixed reactions, was in Lusaka recently giving her views on the economic direction of Zambia under the PF administration.

Her views, however, have been seen by other economists and bankers such as Mr Sampa as ‘skewed’ and sometimes even nostalgic of the previous administration that listened to her without question.

“I would like to tell Ms. Moyo and other critics that Zambia is open for business despite the futile negative criticism we continue to get by those that wish us ill,” Mr Sampa said, “ours is a national duty and calling, not a personal war.”

[Zambia Daily Mail]

Labels: DAMBISA MOYO, MILES SAMPA

posted by MrK @ 3:38 AM