Bank of Zambia (BoZ) deputy Governor Tukiya Mabula has observed that the weak financial sector in Zambia was one of the main obstacles to economic development.
And Dr. Mabula has observed that the Zambian laws have tended to stagnate and therefore not responding to changes in the socio-economic environment.
Speaking during the Association of Law Reform Agencies of Eastern and Southern Africa (ALRAESA) conference in Livingstone today, Dr. Mabula said that the financial sector plays a key role in the smooth and efficient functioning of the economy in the country.
Dr. Mabula said the financial sector was an important contributor to overall economic growth and development of Zambia.
She said government has since devised a Financial Sector Development Plan (FSDP), which is a vision statement and a comprehensive strategy aimed at addressing current weaknesses in the Zambian financial system.
She said that the main focus of the FSDP was on developing the capital markets, enhancing the role of micro-financing in the economy and strengthening banking and non-banking financial institutions.
And Dr. Mabula said that there was need for reforming the financial laws in the country to ensure that financial development, which she said was an integral part of fostering growth and promoting market stability.
She said there was need to have an effective and efficient legal and regulatory framework that promotes a vibrant, competitive and well functioning financial system in Zambia.
She pointed out that a well functioning financial system has been identified as one of the essential factors for achieving the objectives of the FSDP.
The deputy Governor said this could be achieved through developing, strengthening, modernising and harmonising the legal infrastructure relating to the financial sector in Zambia.
Dr. Mabula said it has become apparent that there is not only need for law reform, but also need for law development to meet the challenges of developing the financial sector in the present economic environment.
“The Zambian legal system is based on English law and could generally be said to be archaic. Whereas many changes have taken place in the original English legislation, the Zambian laws have tended to stagnate”, Dr. Mabula observed.
Dr. Mabula further said there was need for regular law review to ensure relevancy and adequacy of the legislation which govern the financial sector.
She disclosed that the central bank was spearheading the review of laws under FSDP that would ultimately have a bearing on the development of a sound economic environment.
Dr. Mabula said a sound economic development should be based on a harmonious legislative foundation in order to determine means of harmonising efforts that put the tenets of good governance at the centre of all developmental efforts.
Like stated elsewhere, there is complete stagnation of ZAmbia due to poor leadership. Our institutions reflect the empity minds of our leaders. Our leaders, although lawyers, have proved that laywers thrive in ancient laws and are not proactive. They are afraid of change since this means that their books on law that sit on their shelves, which they have grown up with would be discarded! Hence they thrive on old and impractical ideas which are stagnant. Lawyers are essentially history in terms of development of any nation. Loom at Cuba. Castro is a lawyer, and see how far they have gone in development!! Other nations that faced sanctions actually thrived due to having non-lawyers as leaders.
Well articulated piece of writing.Iam a History teacher in Malawi and have benefited a lot from this piece of writing.Write more.