ZAMBIA is the sixth biggest military spender in the 14-member South African Development Community, the 1998 SADC regional human development report has revealed. The SADC report, which was released in the Zambian capital Lusaka on Friday, shows that Zambia spent nearly 60% of its combined health and education expenditure from 1990 to 1991 on the military. This is nearly twice what South Africa, which has an average inflation rate of 9,0% cent as compared to Zambia’s 58,1%, spent during the same period. Angola and Mozambique are the highest spenders in the region with the former, which has been engaged in a bloody civil war between the MPLA government and the rebel Unita since independence in 1975, spending over 200% of the combined education and health expenditure.
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