19 May 2008
REFORMS to improve private sector development have not benefited the rural areas, out-going Private Sector Development Programme (PSDP) steering and implementation committee co-chairperson Sherry Thole has said.
Mrs Thole said this during a farewell dinner hosted for her at the weekend that there was need to do more to open up the rural areas to private sector investment.
She said financial institutions had not spread to the rural areas, as they were only concentrating on lending to salaried employees in urban areas, while the rural entrepreneurs were not being supported.
Mrs Thole, who is former Intermarket Banking Corporation managing director and past president of the Bankers Association of Zambia (BAZ), said the newly created Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) must help to develop the rural areas.
The creation of the CEEC was one of the major achievements of the PSDP, and going forward, the commission must focus on energising the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) sector.
"I have come from some places in the Eastern Province, and I think that the impact of the reforms has not been felt out there in the rural areas," she said.
She said SMEs were lacking access to financing, capacity to grow and skills, yet there had been too many surveys and workshops on SMEs and financing.
Mrs Thole said generally the PSDP had performed very well because, through it, the private sector had managed to negotiate with the Government on a number of reforms that had helped to improve the business environment.
Its successes included the creation of institutions like CEEC and the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA), the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB), and a one-stop border facility at Chirundu.
Other achievements were reforms of Labour laws, and improved efficiency in operations of institutions like the Immigrations department and the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA), which enhanced the Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds.
"This has been a great success story on what a joint partnership between the private sector and Government can produce. The reforms have all been coming from the private sector, and the Government responding," she said.
Mrs Thole, who co-chaired the committee as Zambia Business Forum (ZBF) president, however, bemoaned the slow pace at which the Government introduced the reforms, though the anxiety was understood because the private sector usually did things faster.
She also questioned some criteria used by some ratings, which showed that Zambia had dropped on the world ratings of countries with good business environments, because the country had made major improvements, especially in the area of business licencing.
At the same function, in-coming co-chair of the PSDP and new ZBF president Dev Babbar said there were still a lot of work needed to be done and the steering and implementation committee had given new directions to the working groups.
The PSDP steering and implementation committee is co-chaired by the ZBF president and deputy secretary to the Treasury Likolo Ndalamei, representing the Government.
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