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Mutesa calls for budget that targets key sectors

Mutesa calls for budget that targets key sectors
Written by Florence Bupe
Thursday, December 25, 2008 10:36:19 AM

UNIVERSITY of Zambia (UNZA) Development Studies lecturer Dr Fred Mutesa has urged government to institute and implement a national budget that will address the country’s challenges with an increased sense of urgency.

And Dr Mutesa has observed that Zambia is in a very unsteady situation because of the fragility of its economic performance.

In an interview, Dr Mutesa said the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP), which is Zambia’s five year plan aimed at stimulating economic and social growth, lacked a sense of urgency in addressing challenges in the country’s key sectors.

“The FNDP lacks prioritisation of key sectors of our economy other than mining. We seriously need to look at other critical areas at the moment such as infrastructure, agriculture and energy,” Dr Mutesa said. “We need to have a national budget that will reflect on the improvement of key growth sectors. Currently, we have a problem with aligning our national budget expenditure to development priorities.”

Dr Mutesa said the nation could only talk of sustainable poverty reduction once it puts in place a national budget that was able to address and prioritise the financing of sectors that would significantly impact directly on the lives of the rural population.

“According to the latest Living Conditions and Monitoring Survey (LCMS), the country’s poverty levels have gone down to 64 per cent, but this figure is still too high and unacceptable,” he said.

Dr Mutesa advised that Zambia should look at enhancing its product value addition instead of relying on the export of raw materials.

”We must work hard to diversify our economy, and the question we need to ask ourselves is, ‘What do the people who import our copper do with it?’ Copper is a raw material used for industrialisation. We must use the copper for our own industrialisation. We must ask ourselves what kind of skill we require to process that copper and concentrate on developing that skill,” he said.

Dr Mutesa further advised that the government should come up with an emergency plan that should be seen to start bearing tangible fruits in the short and medium terms.

“As it is, we are spending a lot on administration in government. What we need is policy implementation. We need a 10 year plan to turn this economy around, and we should begin to see the fruits within five years,” said Dr Mutesa.

Labels: BUDGET, FRED MUTETESA, GREAT DEPRESSION II

posted by MrK @ 10:35 AM