By Brian Matambo | Media Director | 22 June 2026

Former Finance Minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane attempted to dismiss Hon. Makebi Zulu’s questions about the Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriageway as ignorance and misinformation. Unfortunately for Dr Musokotwane, the Auditor-General, Parliament and NAPSA have already placed evidence on record that contradicts several of his claims. Insults are loud, but documents are stubborn.

Musokotwane claims that no Chinese loan existed for the earlier project. That is factually incorrect. The Auditor-General records that a US$187 million credit facility was agreed with Jiangxi Bank in May 2019 to finance 15 per cent of the contract. From that facility, US$30,000,000.70 was disbursed in October 2019. Hon. Makebi Zulu was, therefore substantially correct that Chinese financing existed. It was a Jiangxi Bank credit facility, not imaginary money created by the learned counsel.

The US$30 million remains a serious PF-era irregularity. The Auditor-General found no invoices, supporting documents or physical evidence showing how the contractor used it. That failure must not be defended. But after almost five years in government, Musokotwane cannot continue shouting “PF” as though shouting is a recovery strategy. Where are the court proceedings? Where is the advance-payment guarantee? Who has been prosecuted? How much has been recovered? Musokotwane says the UPND has spent four years pursuing the money, but provides no case number, recovery figure or accountable officer.

His accounting on the current project is equally selective. When the concession was announced on 28 February 2023, Government publicly described it as a US$577 million agreement. Parliament was later given the complete figure of US$649,976,167, comprising US$577.4 million in construction costs and approximately US$72.6 million in working capital, finance costs and construction-period interest. Musokotwane now claims that the figure has never changed. That is clever semantics. Government itself introduced US$577 million to the public before revealing the fuller US$650 million cost.

The financing burden raises even bigger questions. NAPSA has confirmed that its US$300 million facility carries interest of 9.5 per cent over thirteen years and is expected to earn more than US$220 million in interest. NAPSA alone therefore expects approximately US$520 million in principal and interest. Once the complete financing costs of the US$650 million project are considered, the total cash obligations could exceed US$850 million. Hon. Makebi Zulu’s demand for the true financing cost is therefore legitimate. Government must publish the complete model instead of hiding behind the construction price.

Musokotwane also presents this arrangement as a triumph of private capital. Yet NAPSA is providing US$300 million and the Workers’ Compensation Fund Control Board another US$50 million. These are Zambian statutory institutions holding workers’ and pensioners’ resources. At least US$350 million, more than half the declared project cost, is coming from public institutions. What remains undisclosed is the consortium’s actual cash equity contribution and how much genuine private capital it has placed at risk.

The farm-loan analogy used against Hon. Makebi Zulu is particularly weak. An ordinary bank does not borrow a farmer’s money, receive his existing income-producing assets and then obtain the right to operate his farm for twenty-two years. In this transaction, the concessionaire borrows heavily from Zambian statutory funds, receives access to Katuba, Manyumbi and Kafulafuta toll plazas, and is secured through an escrow account funded by road users. The issue is not whether NAPSA should supervise engineers. The issue is why Zambian institutions provide the money while a foreign-controlled consortium receives the concession and tolling rights.

Government says there is no sovereign guarantee and therefore no public risk. That is another half-truth. The risk may not appear as conventional government debt, but pension funds are exposed, existing public toll revenues have been committed and motorists will finance repayment through toll charges. A liability does not disappear merely because it has been moved away from the national balance sheet and placed on the backs of road users.

Musokotwane’s comparison with the PF’s abandoned US$1.245 billion contract does not answer these questions. That earlier contract was excessive, failed to secure complete financing and resulted in an unaccounted-for advance. It deserves investigation. But one defective transaction cannot be used to immunise another transaction from scrutiny. Nor has Musokotwane published the calculation behind his claim that the PF obligation would have reached US$1.8 billion. He demands precision from Makebi while serving the public his own unexplained figure.

Hon. Makebi Zulu’s position stands: publish the full concession agreement, the financing structure, the consortium’s equity contribution, projected toll revenues, tariff escalation formula, termination clauses and every recovery action concerning the missing US$30 million. Until those documents are released, Musokotwane has not answered the questions. He has merely changed the subject, attacked the questioner and hoped the numbers would remain quiet. They have not.