THE return to multipartism in the early 1990s saw the dismantling of the government-run organisations like Superloaf, Zambia Steel and Building Supplies (ZSBS), United Bus Company of Zambia (UBZ) Zambia Consumer Buying Corporation (ZCBC) and National Import and Export Corporation (NIEC) which also meant that the affected employees lost their jobs.
The idea of dismantling of these state-owned organisations was to allow the participation of the private sector to instill efficiency in the running of these industries which somehow paid off.
Today in our article I want us to look at the beginning of entrepreneurship in this country as a matter of history and look at transfer of skills that led to some of these retrenched employees to create some small businesses.
A visit to Patent and Companies Registration Agency (PACRA), will reveal  that privately owned businesses grew in magnitude from early 1990s when the economy was opened up for participation.
You will agree with me that the long queues by the people that characterised some of these parastatals organisations for essential commodities slowly disappeared as they were replaced by more efficienty run industries.
Free enterprise which is described as entrepreneurship introduced in the economy slowly awakened the business ideas in people for participation.
For example the dismantling of UBZ saw the Government extend the olive branch to individual entrepreneurs to bring in buses without paying duty and this brought sanity in the transport sector.
The transport sector is more efficiently run today than yesterday and buses reach all parts of the country without any single complaint raised from the public as was the case those days.
Gone were the days when people used to queue for bread because bakeries were established by individuals especially the foreigners who brought their expertise in this area.
House ownership  among the people increased especially after council houses were sold  to sitting tenants and this beefed up construction industry as  this saw the establishing of businesses in steel and other construction products especially among the employees from the dismantled companies.
The movement of entrepreneurship in this country is traced back to this period when the Government realised that the running of the economy was better left in the hands of the private sector.
In my observation as one who has interacted with a lot of small-scale business men and women I have observed that the individuals who are running these businesses have in one way or another received transferred skills from places where they used to work.
Transfer of skills which can be described as the acquiring of skills at place of work through experience over a number of years at the work place has contributed to many individuals starting their own businesses.
The mechanisation of easy and efficiency business registration has paved way for participation of running the economy today in this country.
I meet some of the people who were retrenched from that time up to now doing their own businesses and have never looked for employment.
One of my former bosses established a garage for vehicle repairs after acquiring practical skills on top of the theory leant from college and today runs one of the top garages in Lusaka.
Another place where free enterprise has worked wonders is in China. After China opened its economy for private participation we have seen it emerge as the producer of all kinds of products and is now the leading exporter of most of the products.
Entrepreneurship which is business initiative or creativity or innovativeness among the individuals is seen as the engine for economic development.
Our colleges in this country should seriously take up entrepreneurship as one of the main subject to persuade the graduates into setting up their own businesses
People should believe in creating employment opportunities for themselves and others.
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