18/03/2025
SOCIALIST PARTY ADVOCATES FOR INDIGENOUS BANKING SYSTEM
Lusaka… Monday March 17, 2025
The Socialist Party (SP) has emphasized the need to prioritize Zambians in the financial sector by establishing banks that are fully owned and controlled by local citizens.
Party President Dr Fred M’membe stated that these indigenous financial institutions could operate alongside existing banks.
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Dr M’membe has stated that Zambia’s sovereignty remains incomplete as long as the nation’s financial and banking assets remain under foreign ownership and control.
He expressed concern over state actors who, in his view, were handing over national interests to international monopoly capital, a situation he described as alarming for any patriot.
Dr M’membe affirmed that, once in power, the Socialist Party would take decisive steps to strengthen state-owned banks and actively encourage indigenous ownership of financial institutions.
He argued that Zambia required deliberate policies to support and protect local banks, ensuring their profitability and sustainability.
The Socialist Party leader further explained that under his administration, state resources would be directly deposited into locally owned banks.
He suggested that if funds from institutions such as the National Pension Scheme Authority (NAPSA), the National Health Insurance Management Authority (NHIMA), and the Workers’ Compensation Fund were exclusively banked in indigenous institutions, these banks would immediately become market leaders and gain control over the nation’s economic direction.
Pointing to Nigeria as an example, Dr M’membe highlighted the country’s transformation into Africa’s financial hub following policies introduced in the late 1980s under General Ibrahim Babangida.
He noted that Zambia could implement a similar, yet improved, model to shift away from what he described as the government's excessive reliance on foreign institutions.
Concluding his remarks, Dr M’membe stressed that prioritizing Zambians in the financial sector was both a national urgency and an emergency.
He called for immediate action to ensure that the country's financial future was firmly in the hands of its own people.
