Embrace e-government, ZFE urges state

Zambia Federation of Employers has called on government to embrace e-government services to promote sustainable development.

Speaking during this year's Labour Day celebrations, ZFE representative Cosby Chongo said the federation believes that introducing e-government services in a number of government ministries and agencies would promote efficiency in service delivery to the Zambian people.

He said the e-government service delivery should handle among other service areas, correspondence management system which should encompass all incoming and outgoing correspondences to cabinet ministers and their permanent secretaries.

He said ZFE will not cease to call on government to realise it's obligation to create an enabling business environment for sustainable enterprise which is critical for employment creation. He however cautioned government against overtaxing the private sector because the measure was detrimental to employment creation and a danger to the realisation of the United Nations sustainable development goal number 8 which calls for decent work for all women and men by 2030.

He commended the Bank of Zambia for working hard in actively reducing the monetary and statutory reserve ratio policies several times over the year 2017. He said ZFE is grateful that the policy rate which began the year 2017 at 15.5 percent was reduced to 10.25 percent by end of 2017 and is now at 9.25 percent while the statutory reserve ratio which started the year 2017 at 18 percent is now 8 percent.