Sichinga calls for task force on global financial crisis
Sichinga calls for task force on global financial crisisWritten by Florence Bupe
Friday, December 26, 2008 12:08:06 PM
ECONOMIC analyst Bob Sichinga has advised the government to urgently institute a task force to address the challenges of the global financial crisis in order to save the country from plunging into further vulnerability during the 2009 economic year.
In an interview, Sichinga said unless the country put in place effective measures to avert the effects of the ongoing global financial crisis, the country risked facing greater economic challenges than it currently is.
“My suggestion is that government should immediately set up a task force to look at the issues connected to the global financial crisis immediately. We are ending the year on a negative note, and unless Zambia institutes serious measures to address the effects of the global financial crisis, we will not get out of the economic turmoil that has affected not only Zambia, but also the rest of the world,” he said.
Sichinga said there was need for various stakeholders to work together to effectively establish and implement measures that would benefit the economy.
“We need to adopt a holistic approach to this problem. The Ministry of Finance should work collectively with other agencies to find solutions to this challenge that has affected us as a country,” he said.
Sichinga said as the government prepares the 2009 national budget, it would be vital to look at the country’s areas of strength and concentrate on these areas to help move the economy forward.
He said once the country puts in place appropriate measures to mitigate the effects of the financial crisis, the negative effects were expected to ease by the end of 2009.
“Depending on the measures we take now, I am sure that by the second half of 2009, we will start to see the effects of the global economic meltdown ease,” he said.
Sichinga observed that 2008 had proved to be a challenging year for Zambia, both on the political and economic platform.
Labels: GREAT DEPRESSION II, ROBERT SICHINGA
posted by MrK @ 12:08 PM
1 Comments:
I absolutely agree that there is a need to create a Task Force and a Czar, to secure the food supply, and to create agrarian reform, including land reform, so at least people will not starve. We need to secure food supply for at least 1 year to buy us time, and use that time to reform agriculture. We need to professionalize at least some of the millions of subsistence farmers, build rural infrastructure to ensure year around irrigation and build feeder roads so more of the country can contribute to the food supply. Once that is done, we need to start building a domestic manufacturing base by protecting infant industries with tariffs so rival products cannot be dumped on the Zambian market below the cost of production, to destroy our manufacturing base. Those three things would catapult Zambia on the road to real development, development that brings along the people, instead of leaving them behind. If anyone who wanted to farm had 100 hectares (not the present 2-3 hectares) and access to machinery, they would create middle class incomes for themselves and supply the country with more than enough food to eat, create food reserves, and manufacture the rest into finished goods and export anything beyond that. This would create benefits every step of the way. Incomes would rise, creating demand, food prices would drop, leaving people to spend money on other things and create demand that way, it would lead to manufacturing jobs being created, it would put money into the rural areas. They key to development, is that as much of the cost of production or value chain is spent locally. That is the key. Right now, neoliberal economics has conspired to export as much as the value chain, leaving Zambia poor even after historically high copper prices. And we should sue the IMF for loss of income from their horrible advice to privatise the mines, without even including a windfall tax clause - not that the foreign mining companies would ever pay taxes in Zambia, of course, they just take and take until there is nothing left, and then move on.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home