By JOSEPH BANDA –
THE Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has urged Zambians to take advantage of the country’s latest ranking as the seventh best country for business in Africa.
Forbes, a leading business finance and investments news outlet, in its latest report ranked Zambia as the seventh best economy in Africa out of 54 countries on the continent.
ZCTU secretary general Cosmas Mukuka said in an interview yesterday that the onus was now on the Zambian people to rise to the occasion and grow the economy further.
Mr Mukuka said to achieve further economic growth, Zambians should strictly interpret and follow President Edgar Lungu’s speech to Parliament which spelt out a progressive roadmap.
He said Mr Lungu’s speech was forthright on economic diversification and the revival of cooperatives because that was the only way the country could derive much economic benefit.
He suggested that Zambia should strive to grow its domestic revenue by capturing the informal sector, which has many players.
“The issue of capturing the informal sector has become a global issue and many governments want to regulate the sector,” he said.
He said in the case of Zambia, out of the six million employable people, only 600,000 were employed while the rest were in the informal sector.
Mr Mukuka said that was the reason the informal sector should be regulated so that the players could also pay some form of tax.
He said although the setting up of a national airline was costly, it was a worthwhile venture that could still be undertaken through the Public Private Partnership arrangement.
According to Forbes, the top 10 African countries were Mauritius, South Africa, Morocco, Botswana, Cape Verde, Rwanda and Zambia. The rest were Ghana, Senegal and Tunisia.
It said Zambia had one of the world’s fastest growing economies for the past 10 years, with real Gross Domestic Product growth of about 6.7 per cent per annum.