Foreign investment
Foreign investmentBy Raphael Mukuka, Australia
Tuesday June 12, 2007 [04:00]
The current economical development plans for Zambia do not highlight how the nation shall grow its wealth and reduce poverty in any given time frame.
The government seems to be solely dependant on donor aid, grants, foreign investment and debt cancellation as Zambia's salvation to a better life.
In as much as we need the mentioned good gestures, what we urgently need is an extension of the olive branch to local investors so that their platform of trade is improved. Zambia needs to have a strong vivid domestic policy towards incoming foreign investment so that the locals can survive and have room to expand their businesses.
For example, most Asian investors in this country run wholesale shops and takeaway outlets that Zambians can manage. Most of these investors trade in disposable’ clothes and shoes that you only wear once and after that they are worn out or have faded.
What we need are investors who will build manufacturing industries and bring in technology that will foster development. government should draw up a structure to deliberately indulge local investors in various sectors of development like manufacturing industries, mining, tourism and agriculture.
We need a well outlined foreign investment approach so that we can achieve desired results. government must target investors with a proven track record of development and also outline areas of concern like wages and other working conditions.
China’s industrial sector is among the fastest growing industries in the world and such we should tap into their industrial technology and not just the finished products.
Most Zambians are not exposed to investment and as such the government must take the initiative and teach people how they can be part and parcel of development.
Take for example, when most of the people are retrenched or retired and are given a reasonable sum of money they end up buying a mini bus, taxi or start a grocery shop as means of investment. They hardly have knowledge on risks involved in such an investment and in a short time of space, they realise they are not making enough profits to save and feed from. Coupled with business running costs and domestic bills, the business dies and all their savings go down the drain.
There are also people in Zambia who have earned their wealth legitimately and if the government targeted them to invest in mining, agriculture and tourism, things would turn around. There has to be a deliberate and quick plan to develop the nation. If a local thief on the street can have a plan on how to steal from you, what about a government that is leading a nation?
We don’t hate foreign investment; mistrust has been built in an average Zambian’s mind because of the poor wages and conditions of service rendered by most foreign investors. Much of these mistrust stems from the privatised mines and how some towns have been turned into ghost towns.
The government must take the first step to teach the nation on how to invest and also highlight the areas of development that someone can venture into. The nation can never develop without deliberate intention and a good progressive systematic pragmatic plan.
http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=27759
UNZA funding
By S. Mabuku
Tuesday June 12, 2007 [04:00]
I wish to concur with the clergyman's views on the government funding to UNZA in your paper dated 9th June, 2007.
While I agree that the government should increase funding to UNZA, I also strongly support his view that responsibility for UNZA welfare should fall more on UNZA management.
It is management that should formulate innovative policies that will enable the institution generate income to supplement government funding. Certainly the Alumui of UNZA will respond positively to a genuine request for funding a developmental project.
What is of utmost importance is for UNZA to invest in income generating enterprises. These should not interfere with the learning and professional activities at UNZA but instead support them. Management should adopt a holistic approach to tackling the problems at the institution. All stakeholders should be involved, including lecturers and the students body.
What is important is not how the concerned parties differ but how they work together.
http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=27816
Red campaign on the constitution
By Saka Sokontwe
Wednesday June 13, 2007 [04:00]
I sat attentively during the Red Campaign launch at Kapingila House, listening to Reverend Susanne Matale explain how Mwanawasa has single handedly taken an unacceptable route in the constitution-making process, foregoing the people’s collective aspirations.
I started reflecting on the sermon which was preached yesterday(10/06/07) at Miracle Family Life Church entitled "The sovereignty of God".One of the questions the pastor asked the congregation was "Does God have the ability to do what he wants?" The answer was a resounding yes, because he is sovereign.
The pastor stated that the word sovereign means possesing supreme power or authority. He went on to quote Exodus 3. But my main areas of interest are Verses 7 and 10 which read,"And the Lord said: I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows and come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." Respectively, the pastor went on to quote Genesis 18:17, which reads:"And the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing...". The pastor explained that even with the supreme power and authority that God possesed, to wipe out the Egyptians and Sodom and Gomorrah, he made choices.
First he gave himself boundaries and second he partnered with human kind. What about Levy Mwanawasa, does he have the ability to do what he wants? The answer is a resounding no with a red card, because he is not sovereign. He must know that supreme power and authority lies in the people he wants to be master of.
http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=27815
Development policy
By Calvin Habasonda
Wednesday June 13, 2007 [04:00]
Recent years have seen a renewed emphasis on poverty reduction as the central goal of development policy and cooperation.
This is partly a consequence of the generally disappointing performance of structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s and 1990s in delivering high growth associated with rapid poverty reduction.
The growth-driven approach to poverty reduction has been at the core of debate among policy makers, development workers and scholars. Those in favour of the approach argue for the potential of resources created to provide employment for people through reinvestment. Under this approach, people’s well-being is measured in terms of income. The counter argument is that while growth is necessary, it is not a sufficient condition to guarantee poverty reduction.
In countries like Zambia with high initial inequality and rising inequality, poverty reduction will be slower even in the presence of economic growth. Conversely, reducing inequality would directly reduce poverty, increase poverty impact of growth and may even increase growth itself and further accelerate poverty reduction. Pro-poor growth is therefore seen as a crucial strategy to accelerate poverty reduction.
The idea behind pro-poor growth is that growth will lead to particularly high income increases for the poorest and expand their opportunities at life more than those high up in the income scale. To this extent, the operational aim of pro-poor growth is seen as that of increasing income growth for the poor and enhancing their capability to escape vulnerability to poverty.
While pro-poor growth rhetoric is current in Zambian development policy, it is not clear whether any studies or research have been done to determine any robust determinants of this approach and the associated growth incidence curve. It would seem that most growth-poverty analyses are descriptive and are typically unable to clearly link specific government policies to identifiable inequality and poverty outcomes and impacts. It is also necessary to establish the growth-poverty trade-off.
Available evidence in some countries shows that in certain cases, people’s livelihoods have not improved even in the presence of high economic growth because with increased economic growth comes rising inequality. Research provides insights as to what this sacrifice ratio is at any given rate of GDP growth.
I propose that the analyses of our experts in government need to among other things, determine the role of inequality in generating and preventing growth and poverty reduction, the role of pro-active policies to either affect inequality and to improve the ability of the poor to participate in growth.
The crucial role of transmission mechanisms (e.g. prices) between growth and the incomes of the poor, and the role of political economy and institutional issues also need to be addressed. All analytical tools such as growth incidence, decomposition, or regression analyses as well as ex-ante simulation and modelling methods to assess the potential for pro-poor growth policies must be employed.
For instance, by how much will the projected 7 per cent growth in GDP reduce poverty? Otherwise we will continue speculating why poverty is not reducing amidst economic growth.
I am inclined to believe that unless there is a clear understanding of the growth-poverty-inequality nexus, poverty reduction will remain elusive.
Perhaps we need to begin to use our intellectual capital to inform development policy.
http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=27814
Listening government
By Andrew Siamana
Wednesday June 13, 2007 [04:00]
I write with reference to yesterday’s column in which a colleague from the Western Province, Mongu to be specific, wrote about the cement shortage and requested the Mwanawasa-led government to respond to this crisis.
Well, I thought the people in the Western Province were going to have a fair share of the national cake because they voted wisely. I guess we are all the same and so why should the writer use threats in order to remind the government of its mandate!
The truth of the matter is that this government does not want to listen anymore no matter how much the people talk, because the private media is doing enough, advisors have also tried to be eye openers for the government but in vain.
Our country’s economy is dwindling. It is more or less like we are sitting on a time bomb. The bottom line to this negligence is simply greed and selfishness that most leaders in the Zambian government have. This is simply because they can afford their children’s education abroad, lavish cars and houses.
Our friends in neighbouring countries are intensively preparing for the 2010 world cup because they know that they are investing while the Zambian soccer fans are perishing due to the government’s negligence, the civil service is in tatters, hospitals are pathetic, schools dilapidated and roads are also in a bad state.
All this is happening in Zambia where people voted for a ‘listening government’! Well I haven’t seen any improvements on the living standards except the fight against corruption which has become a big investment for the government at the expense of economic development, how sad!
May the government please ensure their services are delivered and spare us the embarrassment on the African continent!
Labels: LETTERS
posted by MrK @ 6:02 AM
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