ANY weekly columnist will tell you that there are just some weeks when one is swamped with all sorts of ideas to base the next article on.
The ideas could for some weeks be so many that wherever you look you pick up one thereby making it pretty difficult to settle on any.
This week saw me in exact that position where I was spoiled for choice of ideas to base today’s Policy Analysis on.
Similarly, there are also moments when, as a columnist, you are totally blank and whatever you try to research on, you draw a blank and I think that is worse than the first scenario.
But this week there have been several possible ideas and I had to struggle to settle on anything including what you are reading now.
Given the period of the year, with the election campaign euphoria in the air, I thought of looking at the political parties’ manifestoes on economic policies.
The narrative is that, save for one political party which I will not name for now, other political parties have not come up with new manifestoes ahead of the August 11 2016 general elections.
One could only assume that these parties would either launch the documents just in the nick of time for the imminent kick-off of the official campaign period for the elections.
The other assumption is that, at least for those which have been on the political scene longer, they will be able to rely on their previous manifestoes, albeit they may have become outdated and overtaken by events.
Justice will be done to that subject some other time, though!
There has also been the issue of the shortage of mealie meal, artificial or otherwise, which has been a thorny one for more than a couple of weeks now.
There are a lot of news pegs from there ranging from the question on last season’s maize bumper harvest, marketing strategies, the private sector’s involvement to the issue of the rising national population vis-à-vis national total food consumption.
Could it be that there is an underestimation of the total national population let alone of the people who solely depend on the existing milling companies for the staple food?
What about the seeming disappearance of 25 kilogrammes (kg) bags of mealie meal in most outlets while the 10 kg ones are everywhere! What could be causing that?
Directly connected to that is the role of the Zambia Co-operative Federation (ZCF), which we all thought that, at least starting this year, will help in resolving this conundrum of high prices of the maize products amid bumper harvest.
Then there is the issue of the new variable mining tax regime which has been hailed by many, including the Zambia Chambers of Mines (ZCM), as capable of ensuring a win-win situation.
Now the ZCM’s main obligation is obviously to uphold the interests of the mining houses and these were the same entities which complained against the foregoing tax regime.
Therefore, I feel, any support for any new taxes from that category of stakeholders should be taken with a pinch of salt, as they say!
For now the topic will remain active in this forum until the provisions are fully looked at.
Then there is also the recently launched Zambia Development Agency’s (ZDA) third strategic plan which will cater for the period 2016 -2020 and aimed at “transforming businesses for the full benefit of Zambians.”
There is need to look at how the five-year blueprint acknowledges the changing economic environment and the conversion of the ZDA from a mere promoter of trade and industry into a full national development tool.
But even before that is done, what is the evaluation of the foregoing document?
How many of the targets were met and how many have been re-included in the new plan from the second plan?
Another area worth focusing on is how different the new plan is from the old and how effectively will it be in addressing current economic challenges.
Just this week, we received the report of the dismal performance of the ZCCM Investment Holding and it would be worthwhile to look at the causes of that poor show.
Is the poor result of the just concluded financial year for the investment holding reflective of the general poor performance of the mines last year?
A few weeks ago I stated that, God willing, the following week I would focus on the treatment of insurance claims by insurance companies from the personal experience point of view.
Sadly, I am still getting that experience and at an appropriate time, will feature the article.
I cannot say more on that to avoid jeopardising the investigations, as colleagues from security wings would say.
Coming a few days after the end of the first quarter for the year, this column could also have been focused on the national economic performance in the last three months of the year.
Economic objectives like those on inflation, interest rates and the foreign exchange rate could have been part of that article.
Talking of inflation, the country ended the first quarter of 2016 at 22.2 per cent, a 0.7 per cent reduction from the 22.9 per cent posted in February 2016 and experts predict that the positive trend would continue.
That is all for now, but look out for next week’s detailed article on one of these items.
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