Government should be looking at economic issues from a very aggressive perspective in a bid to avert hunger and address existing challenges in key sectors such as mining and the agriculture sector, Citizens First president Harry Kalaba has said.
Mr. Kalabatold The Scoop that the agriculture sector needed better management and that when programmeswere put in place, they should be good enough to revolutionize the sector.
He said the agriculture sector needed to be mechanized and players should be well informed with the view to attain desired results.
The opposition leader said more engagements with farmers were needed in order to allow the farmers to buy into the various new policies.
“The farmers’ loans are wasting time.The FISP was more beneficiary to the farmers,with loans if the farmers getthe loans and fail to pay. Government should have allowed the farmers loans to be a pilot program that can be rolled out gradually,” Mr. Kalaba said.
The challenges that Zambia is facing, Mr. Kalaba said, needs research and that is why as a party we have a fully-fledged research team to help us research on how best to manage the country’s economic issues.
He further called on the government to look at ways of introducing a statutory instrument (SI) that would compel mining companies to bring back the money in Zambia after the sale of minerals as that would help stabilize the Kwacha performance against other convertible currencies.
Meanwhile Chikondi Foundation president John Mambo said that it was important for the ruling party and the opposition political players to work together in addressing existing socio-economicchallenges.
Mr. Mambo said that any developing country that embraced divergent views had a guarantee of attaining its developmental agendas, adding that Zambia should always take up the unity of purpose path.
He also said politicians should always be sober minded as they seek dialogue on economic issues with those in government.