Claim
On Wednesday 15th June 2022, Daily Times uploaded a statement on their Facebook page alleging that the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane, had stated that if the government will not secure the International Monetary Fund supported program for Zambia, then the UPND government will not proceed to recruit Teachers and Health workers. This follows widespread media reports circulating on social media that the recruitment of Teachers and Health workers is sorely dependent on the IMF, as government might suspend the recruitment if the IMF bailout package collapses.
Rating Justification
The fact checking process has determined as misleading, the statement by Daily Times, that the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Dr. Musokotwane had stated that if the government will not secure the IMF supported program for Zambia, then the UPND government will not proceed to recruit teachers and health workers. During the verification process, iVerify obtained a statement from the Ministry of Finance and National Planning in which the Ministry clarified that the recruitment of teachers and medical personnel and the provision of funds under the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) will proceed as scheduled. This is because the recruitment exercise and CDF financing are already provided for in the 2022 National Budget, which as stated in the 2022 Budget speech by the Minister of Finance and National Planning on Friday, 29th October 2021, the larger part of financing for the 2022 Budget is from domestic revenue, and external sources, mainly from the IMF through the US$ 1.3 billion Special Drawing Rights (SDR) allocation disbursed by the IMF to the Government in August 2021. The ministry further explained that the rest of the financing is through ongoing project disbursements and recurrent expenditure, mainly from the World Bank.
In view of the foregoing clarification and explanation from the Ministry of Finance and National Planning, the claim by Daily Times that the Minister of Finance stated that if the Zambian government will not secure the IMF supported program for Zambia, then the UPND government will not proceed to recruit Teachers and Health workers, is therefore misleading.
