Maravi

LETTERS - Empowerment

Zambian businesses
By Alatwafweni twachula pafula
Sunday March 04, 2007 [02:00]

I want to commend President Mwanawasa for launching the Citizen Empowerment Committee and his emphassis that only jobs and services that cannot be done by Zambians should be offered to foreigners. This indeed has been long overdue. This committee should seriously look at sectors of the economy where we do not need foreigners.

Surely, do we need foreigers for example in the following fields; insurance brokers, security service and supply services?

Zambian companies are wallowing in poverty after being squeezed out of business while some have folded up on the pretext that these investors have to be services by their global partners.

It’s about time that this country woke up and let the Zambians benefit from their rich land. The poverty we are experiencing is self-infilicted by authorities who have denied their fellow Zambians a chance to survive. The President should enforce this and you will see a lot of change in peoples’ lives.


http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=23389

Citizens' Empowerment
By Mkandawire Stein Kampala – Uganda
Sunday March 04, 2007 [02:00]

President Mwanawasa’s speech when he swore in members of the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission can not go without comment. From my personal opinion, the President’s speech needs to be debated exhaustively by MPs who are still debating the 2007 budget. MPs need to incorporate new measures of how Zambia as a nation can move away from the donor dependance syndrome. The President’s speech is such an important one that MPs cannot afford to ignore it and start debating The Post editor.

This is the issue that we should see them spend most of their energies on rather than attacking a well meaning Zambian.

However, I find it very difficult to compare Zambia to Kenya. For example, my colleagues from Kenya have told me that their government has intensified tax collection from all business houses, a thing that I doubt if ZRA does. Second, value added tax in Kenya is at 16 per cent whilst in Zambia is at 17.5 per cent, higher than Kenya, PAYE for the highest earned person in Kenya is 10 per cent whilst in Zambia effective 1st April, 2007 it will be at 35 per cent, three and half times higher than Kenya. In Kenya there is no road tax but fuel levy. The more litres of fuel you consume, the more fuel levy you pay.

Uganda at the moment is also trying to borrow from Kenya the idea of fuel levy and abolish road tax. So in all, I would urge the Honourable MPs to examine and debate the President’s speech critically and analytically if need be send an entourage to Kenya and study their tax system and how effective it has been and bring the ideas to Zambia. But so far from the analysis I have given above, Zambia seems to be collecting more taxes than Kenya. How this money is spent is a question that needs more answers than over-burdening the people.




http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=23366

Review land tenure system
By Bwalya E. Kona, Gaborone, Botswana
Saturday March 03, 2007 [02:00] Print Article Email Article
The firing of lands minister, Gladys Nyirongo yesterday, 28th February 2007 and the suspension of the commissioner of lands / acting lands Permanent Secretary Frightone Sichone both on corruption allegations, coincide with the discussion we had at the “Watering Hole” somewhere in Gaborone, Botswana over the weekend regarding the concept of “land without value in Zambia”. While some may welcome the firing of the minister and the suspension of his acting P.S, the searching of the Ministry of Land on Thursday March 1, 2007 by security forces, I do not think is a permanent solution to the rot happening at the lands ministry and all municipalities in Zambia.

Zambia’s experience with leasehold tenure system of 1975, has been marred by its association with “free land policies” such as the “land without value” concept and the corruption of the allocation process engendered by those policies.

Even the establishment of the lands Act, 1995 did not change the land tenure system or stop corruption. A system in which a scarce and valuable good is administratively allocated virtually free provides opportunities for corruption. This is exacerbated by the different levels of national and local bureaucracy and one central registry to process the applications which force people to make “short cuts”. Development conditions, which had been one of the justifications for use of leasehold rather than full ownership, may have been formulated with good intentions by the Kaunda regime to get large pieces of land owned by a few, but they were rigid, and in any case were rarely effectively monitored.

The system can also be utilised as pretence for government to take land to punish political dissidents. The system also allows those who control “free land” to illegally distribute to themselves and relatives like what Gladys Nyirongo and Frightone Sichone are alleged to have done.
We need a stable and secure formal land tenure system which is free of corruption from government officials. I therefore propose that the government should revisit the two land tenure systems we have at the moment. The government is also strongly advised to consider a bespoke freehold land tenure system and let land rights exchange hands commercially in a free market. Let land value be dictated by supply and demand forces, after all land in Zambia has value.




http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=23395

Lusaka mayor’s suspension
By Temwan
Sunday March 04, 2007 [02:00]

I want to add my voice to the suspension of Lusaka mayor Susan Nakazwe from the Patriotic Front.

I am sure that some people will just approach the mayor's suspension emotionally without really analysing the cause behind that action by the PF leadership.

I stand to be corrected but Nakazwe seems to be one of those people who just took advantage of the PF popularity in Lusaka and Copperbelt to stand on that ticket. No matter what we do, we cannot deny the fact that without PF, Nakazwe would not have been mayor. I stand to be challenged but I wonder if Nakazwe would have won the councillorship in her ward had she stood on another political party’s ticket or if she decided to go it alone as an independent.

The suspension of the Lusaka mayor in my view should serve as an eye opener to other PF councillors. Ignorance will kill you. Please read widely so that people like the minister of local government do not take advantage of your ignorance to scare you over nothing.
I personally had an opportunity to talk to her worship Nakazwe one -on-one and she told me that she worked according to the local government Act. Can she quote any paragraph from the same Act, or she simply thinks that everything Masebo says is correct?

Please Ms Nakazwe, come out in the open and declare your intentions. Why is Masebo so insistent on protecting you

Labels: CEE, LAND, LETTERS, MAYOR

posted by MrK @ 4:05 AM