Zambia's economic challenges require local solutions
Dear Editor,
ZAMBIA is facing economic challenges. These have impacted negatively on people's standard of living. It is true to mention here that the cost of living is exponentially high.
This is because the price of most commodities is too high for people to afford. The price of mealie meal, our staple food, is selling at the retail price of around K300 for a 25kg breakfast bag of mealie meal.
The economic challenges Zambia is facing can only be solved by the home-grown solutions. The home-grown solutions include promoting the business enterprises to increase productivity, change the mining tax policies by not giving tax holidays to foreign mining firms, provision of tax incentives to the manufacturing and other sectors.
The other solution is for the government to engage the banking sector to consider reducing the lending rate. This measure will encourage the existing and the upcoming entrepreneurs to borrow money at a low interest rate to boost their businesses.
Banning the importation of locally produced goods is another solution to address the economic challenges. Ultimately, this will lead to high production of goods and services,
Once productivity is enhanced, there will be need to explore the foreign market in the quest to bring foreign exchange into the country.
When these measures are implemented, Zambia will make strides in the economic recovery. Furthermore, the economic status of the country will improve. And the trickledown effect is that the cost of living will reduce. People will benefit from the low price of goods and services.
However, it is unfortunate that the ruling United Party for National Development (UPND) is waiting upon the debt restructuring programme as the panacea to reviving the national economy. This should not be the case.
The truth is mere economic pronouncements by the UPND will not solve the economic challenges. The full implementation of the economic policies is what will transform the national economy for the better.
Ameliorating the economic challenges is what people are expecting from the government. Just to remind the UPND government, the party when in opposition campaigned on the premise of improving the country's economy. But alas, this is not the case. The national economy is worse under the new dawn administration than it was under the Patriotic Front regime.