BRRA calls for legislation amendment to reduce cost of doing business
THE Business Regulatory Review Agency (BRRA) has called for amendments of legislation under which the single licensing system regulation lies in order to reduce the cost of doing business.
Speaking at a media briefing yesterday, BRRA Executive Director Sharon Sichilongo said for the private sector to get the benefits of what BRRA was implementing like harmonising the various licences in the business sector the first step was to amend the laws.
She said licenses were derived from pieces of legislation and for as long as the institutions that were responsible were not implementing the amendments that were recommended when BRRA does its studies on regulatory frameworks in a particular sector there would be no reduction in the cost of doing business.
“If we do not amend the pieces of legations under which numerous licences fall in, the private sector will continue complaining about the high cost of doing business because they would still need to comply the regulations as they are still legal,” Ms. Sichilongo said.
And BRRA Board chairperson, Dominic Kapalu said the issue about harmonising the numerous licenses conversation would be very regular so that they were in public domain.
Mr Kapalu said President Hakainde Hichilema had continuously said that the cost of doing business in Zambia had to go down because high cost of doing business contributed to the high levels of poverty in the country.
Mr Kapalu said many businesses had failed to implement many things they had planned to do because there were a lot of things that they needed to undertake.