Lungu’s Labour Day Message Celebrates Workers During Trying Time

President Lungu has urged workers to reflect on and celebrate their individual and collective contributions as patriotic citizens of Zambia during this challenging time of worldwide pandemic.

Delivering his customary labour day address, the president emphasised that this was one of the strangest holidays in Zambia’s history, with workers unable to gather as they usually would and forced to celebrate in their homes. 

The president encouraged workers to look forward to a brighter tomorrow, when Zambia would be able to get back to work once more.

“We hang on to the hope and trust that we shall overcome and our dedicated labour force and human capital will once again go back into their productive units with most of them employers and creators of their own jobs”, he said.

He then went on to highlight some of the ways in which the government was attempting to mitigate the economic fallout of the Covid-19 outbreak. This included a K10 Billion line of credit from the Bank of Zambia to banks that may face liquidity challenges, and priority lending to small businesses which have been adversely affected by the coronavirus restrictions such as schools, restaurants, bars and nightclubs. 

President Lungu also highlighted that the government has already donated K500 million to the public service pensions fund in order to pay 1,500 retirees and their beneficiaries. 

He added that the government would be extending the list of medical supplies not subject to import duty and value-added tax, a policy which the opposition UPND had called for several weeks ago. 

The president concluded on a supportive note, encouraging Zambians to “Produce local; buy local; and use local” in order to buoy the country’s economy through this difficult time. 

He offered his gratitude to the country’s workers, stating: “to our nation’s labour force in the formal and informal sectors, you are the true value of this nation. I thank you once again for your contributions to this nation”.