Cabinet has approved five bills to be published and introduced in parliament. The five bills are aimed at facilitating the smooth implementation of the 2019 National Budget currently being debated in parliament.
The five bills are the Value Added Tax -Amendment Bill, 2018, Income Tax -Amendment Bill, 2018, and the Customs and Excise -Amendment Bill, 2018. Others are the Insurance Premium Levy (Amendment) Bill, 2018 and the Mines and Minerals Development -Amendment Bill, 2018.
At its 20th Meeting, Cabinet has approved the upgrading of 500 Basic Schools during the period 2019-2022 by way of building additional infrastructure using the low-cost design model.
Chief Government spokesperson Dora Siliya said the current provision for the secondary school sector is at 40 percent and this has resulted in 60 percent of the pupils who sit for grade nine examinations not being able to continue with their secondary school education and this has raised concern by Government.
Mrs. Siliya said Cabinet decided that the improvement in infrastructure in the education sector through the upgrading of 500 existing Basic Schools will greatly assist in increasing the capacity of Secondary School education provision in the country.
She said Cabinet was particularly impressed that the upgrade will involve the communities in the surrounding identified areas unlike the usual Contractor Mode which has tended to be very costly to Government and in most cases not benefited Zambian contractors thereby defeating Government’s policy of citizens’ empowerment.
Ms. Siliya said Cabinet however warned on comprising on the quality further insisting that the Patriotic Front Government will always stick to its plans of ensuring infrastructure development country-wide especially in sectors such as education to improve on literacy levels among the citizens.
And Ms. Siliya said in line with increased access to education in view of the increased infrastructure in the education sector, Cabinet further approved the local and decentralized manufacturing, supplying, delivering and assembling of school furniture for stocking and re-stocking in schools and tertiary institutions.
She said Cabinet indicated that it is necessary to decentralise and localise the manufacturing of school furniture in order to reduce the shortage of furniture in schools; create and support value addition in wood processing in the country; minimise the importation of school furniture so as to promote wealth and job creation in line with the Government empowerment programmes; as well as to reduce capital flight.
Ms. Siliya said Zambia is endowed with abundant forestry and has a good number of government and private institutions that are engaged in carpentry including schools that have design and technology.
She said in view of this, Cabinet approved the utilization of the Technical Education, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Institutions under the Ministry of Higher Education in the production of school furniture country-wide as long as they have the capacity to produce the needed furniture.
Ms. Siliya said Cabinet is convinced this is another way of ensuring that its citizens participate in business created by their Government and thereby build their capacities further as well as empower them economically.
This is by far the worst governance system in recent memory. All they know is to introduce bills that will further worsen the lively hood of citizens. Alas, people are blind and still pay blind loyalty to this cliché of misfits. Why should you force people to part away with the little that is left after putting in a lot of hard work to make a living? Zambia is indeed a country full of illiterates devoid of any sense to decipher mediocrity from real issues. As long as we continue on this trajectory, posterity will surely not spare our collective conscience for having neglected or turned a blind eye to build a better Zambia for future generations. Loan after loan yet we still can not run our affairs prudently, shame.
This is best Govt since independence for change our tax system to ensure that mines contribute more tax than ever before. Most past govt failed to do this because of not understanding the role of govt in development.
MMD under Mwanawasa tried but failed because of lack of policy guidelines.
The other important bill is to support trade schools in our local districts and provinces make school desks, i mean what is better than that. Congrats PF govt for good policies hence you keep winning elections across the country.
Very good, all the undue pressure from the debt crisis allegations had forced Government to finally Tax the Mines fairly. Next remove electricity subsidies on Mines, they pay less than ordinary Zambians. Why should we subsidize profit making entities? For years The mines contribute less to Government coffers than is received from a poorly paid Zambian workforce in PAYE Tax. And good move to enhance capacity in the education sector, this is the greatest investment that a Government can do for its people.
Show me a person that has not borrowed to purchase assets and I’ll show you a Person that has no assets. Credit is only offered to those deemed credit worthy. Our population is growing, this is a big factor in sovereign lenders to continue lending because they know a productive force will be available as a repayment source. So let’s borrow another $10n to put up an electric powered light rail passenger system in Lusaka and Copperbelt, a bridges to link us to Mozambique and more secondary and primary schools
Bravo this a good move aimed at empowering our people, we now look forward to see it implementation.
Bravo
This is a good move aimed at directly empowering our people
Now we wait to see the implementation of this policy to its conclusion.