Local goods vital in achieving social freedom, says Mung'omba
Local goods vital in achieving social freedom, says Mung'ombaBy Chiwoyu Sinyangwe
Saturday March 01, 2008 [03:00]
‘PROUDLY Zambian’ campaign chairperson Mabel Mung’omba has said promoting consumption of locally produced goods and services provides the best option to deliver social freedom to the majority poor. And Trade Kings Limited has said the current power outages posse a threat to the successful implementation of the ‘Proudly Zambian’ campaign.
Commerce minister Felix Mutati has implored sectors involved in the Proudly Zambian Campaign not to relent because the campaign would achieve its intended goals.
Speaking during the ‘Proudly Zambian’ campaign stakeholders pre-launch meeting at Sandy’s Creation on Thursday night, Mung’omba said while the economy had recorded positive growth at macro level, most people at the bottom were still living in poverty.
“We have seen that the economy has somehow been doing well at macro level because all indicators are showing positive signs but at micro-economic level the situation is different,” Mung’omba said.
“So we feel the support of locally manufactured goods and services will help us achieve social freedom for all the people in the country because once the people at the bottom get empowered they will eventually choke those at the top and eventually rise to the top themselves.”
And Trade Kings human resource manager Christopher Pasomba said the current power shortages had negatively impacted on the productive sector.
“The current power shortages are a threat to the successful implementation of the Buy Zambia Campaign,” Pasomba said.
“The continued shortages of power if not carefully managed may compromise the quality of our products which will in turn not only affect the quality of life of the Zambian consumer but the region as a whole where these products are sold. Similarly, load shed is slowing production as more and more man hours are being lost as result.”
Earlier, Mutati thanked the private sector for having actively participated in the campaign.
“I know we can do it if we work hard. It is achievable,” said Mutati.
Labels: MABEL MUNG'OMBA, MANUFACTURING
posted by MrK @ 6:47 AM
4 Comments:
2 Years ago i started to work for a Australian company delivering daily food like Milk,Bread,Eggs,Fruit Juices,Coffee,Cheese,Butter and Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Packs to your door and our motto is all of our products must be 100% Australian made and from a 100% Australian owned company.
We started with 50 customers and today we have 20,000 homes we deliver to.We have expanded from one state to now 3 states of Australia.
Our Sales have gone from $10,000 a month to now over $1.8AU Million Dollars a month.
All of the profits stay in Australia and All of the Jobs are secured for our workers.
Zambia needs to be proud of local products and support them.
Stay away from Foreign Owned/Made Products unless its unavailable locally.
If its unavailable locally?
There is potential for a goldmine in that sector.
Hi Mr. Scort,
Zambia needs to be proud of local products and support them.
Absolutely. Which is why for instance 'Free Trade', the way it has been interpreted is always undermining local production. There should be incentives for both creating and buying local products - tax breaks, government subsidies, etc.
There should also be preferential trade agreements with Zambia's surrounding countries, so they can prop up eachother's local production.
However, traditionally, manufacturing is an offshoot of agricultural surpluses. If Zambian subsistence farmers were turned into commercial scale farmers (of say 100 hectare farms - the average size of a farm in Europe), then there would be more than enough food, to turn surpluses into finished goods. For instance, apart from storing maize for food security nationwide, surplus maize could go to make bourbon or whiskey for export, as it has in the United States and Canada.
But you're living in Australia. I wonder if you are familiar with the work of P.A. Yeomans, who wrote "Water For Every Farm", and who did a lot of pioneering work on the issue of water storage on individual farms.
http://www.keyline.com.au/ad1ans.htm
If Zambia could adopt those methods, a lot of arable land would become avaialable for agriculture year-around, instead of being dependent on rainfall.
Thanks a lot for posting, and check it out.
Very educating page you have linked there.
Landcare Australia has done many projects around the country to help on salt build up on farms and revegatation of farms that were stripped bare for sheep and cattle grazing.
Farmers are now under the 8th year of drought here and some have just given up planting any crops as there is no rains.
Our water storage dams that are for humans/House/Factories are down to about 37%.
The good news is that constant advertising and strict laws on use of water has taken Victoria back to 1982 water usage levels.
If the recent flooding is anything to go by, Zambia's potential for water storage infrastruture creation is huge.
There could be huge works project, that would create infrastructure, reduce unemployment and stimulate the economy. The way the creation of the Hoover Dam in the US did, except much more and much smaller projects.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home