Implement L/stone outcomes - Mutati
THE progressive recommendations from
last week’s national
economic summit will remain on paper if no bold steps are taken towards implementing them, MMD leader Felix Mutati has said.
Mr Mutati said implementation of resolutions from such forums was where Zambia had been failing.
Speaking to the media in Chienge yesterday, Mr Mutati said Zambia was never short of progressive policies that could transform all sectors of the economy, but that implementation had been the biggest challenge.
He said there was an immediate need to bridge the gap between having progressive conversations about how Zambian could counter the challenges facing the economy and turning such brilliant ideas into action plans to actualise objectives.
“A few days ago, we had a national economic dialogue, but it is not so much that came out which matter, but about bridging the gap between pronouncements, resolutions and then actions that must be taken to actualise set objectives.
“From a policy perspective, we haven’t had any inefficiencies in policy formulation and direction, but there has always been a gap in policy implementation.
“Pronouncements made at the national economic summit will remain ideas unless we fill the gap so that we can begin to create practical action points,” Mr Mutati said.
He said Zambia’s economic recovery plan would remain unattainable if the plight of critical players such as the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) was not addressed.
“What we should be talking about now is taking practical steps on how we can give chance to the private sector such as SMEs to survive and how we can deal with financial institutions to an extent that they do not give meagre percentages on savings and charging exorbitantly on lending thereby discouraging the savings culture.
“We must commit ourselves that we have an export policy, for example, maize, but that such a policy is crowded by the issuance of permits which negates the effectiveness of the policy itself, and that for me is key,” he said.
Mr Mutati said the construction sector in Zambia was one of those which could enable Zambian companies to grow but that as long as practical steps were not taken to protect the players, growth would remain a challenge.