TOURISM and Arts Minister Jean Kapata has opened the first ever art gallery in Livingstone which was constructed at a total cost of K6,000,000.

Officially opening the art gallery on Thursday, Ms Kapata urged artists in Livingstone to trade in authorized areas.

Ms Kapata said the Ministry of Tourism and Arts, through the National Arts Council of Zambia (NAC) would continue to develop the facility to higher standards expected of a gallery in a tourist capital.

She said as the country celebrated its 50 years of independence, the expectations of the newly built art gallery were high.

Ms Kapata said the Ministry was expectant that artists would maximize the usage of the gallery to promote tourism in the country.

“With the construction of this gallery, we do not expect to see artists trading in unauthorized areas. The Maramba cultural village just across will also provide improved market access to the tourists as well as the public who wish to buy souvenirs from Livingstone the great tourist capital of Zambia,” Ms Kapata said.

Ms Kapata said the gallery would also contribute towards employment creation in the creative arts industries space.

She said the Livingstone gallery which would carter for visual arts from various categories including painters, photographers, sculptors and ceramics, had commenced installation of equipment and that the exercise was expected to be completed by January 2015.

Ms Kapata appealed to the Livingstone Tourism Association (LTA) and other tour operators in Livingstone to include the gallery and the recently built Maramba cultural village on the city tourism circuit.

And speaking earlier at the same occasion, NAC Chairperson Mulenga Kapwepwe said much had happened in the art sector in Zambia from the colonial times.

Ms Kapwepwe said artists during the struggle for independence played an important role by expressing themselves in order for the country to be liberated.

She said the art gallery was a special gift and had a special meaning for the artists as the country celebrated 50 years of independence.

“Artists played their role during the struggle for independence, they expressed themselves using among other things paint and brushes.
The works of artists capture vividly the experiences of our people during the struggle for freedom,” Ms Kapwepwe said.

Ms Kapwepwe appealed to artists to embrace the arts gallery and make use of it to promote local tourism.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OFFICIAL STATEMENT

17th October 2014

WAGE FREEZE: KILLING THE WORKER

The announcement by Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda that the wage freeze will be implemented even in 2015 was actually made during the presentation of the 2014 budget in parliament last year.

UPND, warned the Zambian people that the wage freeze would hurt most Zambian families especially that the PF had removed fuel and mealie meal subsidies. The subsidies were acting as a cushion to ameliorate the high cost of living.

The PF government and Mr. Chikwanda should not punish innocent Zambians for his reckless borrowing and myopic planning in national economic matters.

It is not the people of Zambia that forced Hon. Chikwanda to recklessly and corruptly dish out contracts for roads and bridges even when he had no money to pay and now wants to lamp the burden on the already heavily taxed but poorly paid Zambian workers.

UPND does not believe in a confrontational approach to solving issues such as demonstrations as ZCTU and its affiliates now want to do. But in a situation where dialogue fails as has been the case with the PF government that does not believe in round-table discussions, we have no choice but to support the workers in addressing their grievances because confrontation is the only language the PF understands.

We all know PF won elections on, among other lies, ‘more money in your pockets and lower taxes’ slogan. How does Chikwanda, who has imposed a wage freeze, reconcile this slogan with the real life for the Zambian workers and the firms that employ them?

Indeed, workers were promised more money and got a 52% increment in the 2014 budget towards personal emoluments and this pressure extended to private sector who had to match the civil servants salary increments by implementing a mandatory minimum wage.

But simple economics dictated that the firms equally had to increase cost of goods and services to raise money to meet these wages and this was coupled with a high cost of doing business after the removal of fuel subsidies.

The PF and Mr. Chikwanda’s poor and outdated economic measures are what we are seeing now where the cost of essential commodities and generally the cost of living is unbearable, the Kwacha is very weak, hospitals are poorly funded, and the education sector is in tatters. You know that your education sector is in tatters when students start committing suicide due to lack of bursaries.

There is no way we can have a wage freeze when electricity tariffs have increased, water tariffs increase, fees increased, and transport costs have increased.

UPND and my president Hakainde Hichilema, we resolved to first robustly grow the economy above 10% GDP through agriculture, mining, tourism and manufacturing (including agro processing) sectors with right incentives and this will increase employment sources, widen the tax and export base. The money generated from these sectors will then be used to support the social sectors such as education, health and develop road and other infrastructure without resorting to reckless borrowing.

Let me reiterate this, when Government closes its doors to collective bargaining and resorts to heavy handedness, the way Chikwanda is doing, the only way is to withdraw one’s services. So ZCTU and other unions are on firm ground to compel this Government to come to the table and give our civil service decent wages and this is fully supported by UPND.

Percy Chanda
UPND- Chairperson for Labour

GOVERNMENT is scouting for $410 million to upgrade Indeni Oil refinery and thereafter sell 49 percent of the company’s shares to an equity strategic partner and prolong its long term reliability.

Commerce, Trade and Industry deputy minister Miles Sampa told parliament yesterday Government wanted to upgrade the company from its current form of being just a separator into an oil refinery to allow it to produce low price gas and pure crude oil and other petroleum by-products.

He was responding to a question for oral answer raised that Chipili PF MP Davies Mwila who wanted to find out why the Government had decided to sell some shares in Indeni oil refinery to the public.

Government was exploring all avenues to come up with a strategic partner who would assist it co-finance and upgrade Indeni oil refinery.

He said Government had realized that Indeni had not been very efficient hence the move to upgrade and sell its shares.

Luena UPND MP Getrude Imenda wondered what happened to the Italian Government investor who was running the refinery together with the Zambian Government and Mr Sampa informed the House that the Italian investor disengaged from the partnership.

GOVERNMENT is discussing with trade unions over the wage freeze. During the vice president’s question and answer session, Vice President Guy Scott told parliament that a dispute had been declared on the issue of the wage freeze with the workers unions.

He said negotiations were however on-going between the union and the Government to finalise the issue of the wage freeze.

The situation with regard to the wage freeze was a tricky one for the Government but negotiations had continued between the Government and the unions.

The House also heard that Choma central MP Cornelius Mweetwa would next week raise a private member’s motion against the wage freeze.

British High Commissioner to Zambia James Thornton has backed the Patriotic Front (PF) government’s decision to maintain the wage freeze on the civil service in the 2015 financial year.

This is despite country’s trade unions warning of dire consequences that include countrywide mass demonstrations should government remain adamant on wage freeze.

In an interview with Qfm News, Mr. Thornton says his concern is the broader economic situation of Zambia.

Mr. Thornton says if government is to control fiscal deficits, one of the ways to do so is to restrict public spending.

The British envoy says this is why he thinks that by imposing a wage freeze on the civil service, the Zambian government is trying to cut down on deficits especially that the public service was recently awarded a huge pay increment.

Opposition All People’s Congress (APC) president Nason Msoni has called for responsible lending by lenders to purported irresponsible borrower countries such as Zambia.

Mr. Msoni says his party holds the position that there must be a level of mutual responsibility between the borrowing country and the foreign lending institutions.

He has told Qfm News that his party’s position is in view of revelation by government that Zambia’s current external debt has now reached US$ 4.7 billion.

Mr. Msoni notes that by all means his party does not think that contracting such a huge debt in a short period of time represents any prudent economic management on the part of Patriotic Front government.

He says the manner and style in which the country is now contracting foreign debt is frightening and worrisome and therefore calls for responsible lending on part of the lenders.

Mr. Msoni states that Zambia cannot sustain such kind of borrowing by the PF government owing to the fact that the borrowed money is allegedly only manifested in the shopping malls that are sprawling up countrywide.

Vice President Guy Scott says the freeze on signing new road contracts does not mean that the PF Government is broke.
Dr Scott said the PF Government is not facing any financial crisis adding that the moratorium on new road contracts was meant to address some irregularities in the road sector.

He assured that the freeze on new road contracts is temporary and should not be misunderstood.

Dr Scott said was speaking in Parliament Friday morning during the Vice President Question Time.

“Asking me to confirm whether we have stopped signing contracts because we are facing a financial crisis is like asking whether you stopped beating your wife yet and you have to explain that you never started. The freeze or moratorium on new road contracts is just a management and housekeeping arrangement,” Dr Scott said.

Dr Scott reaffirmed that Government is not stopping the development of Zambia following the freeze on new road contracts.

“We are just sorting out irregularities and we will resume. We are not broke.”

On the establishment of a national airline, Dr Scott said there is currently no firm Government position on the matter.
He said Cabinet will have to sit and make a ruling on whether Zambia should go ahead and establish a national flag carrier.

And Dr Scott failed to guarantee when all the farmers who supplied Maize to the Food Reserve Agency will be paid.

“I don’t think I can give a guarantee of anything to do with the funding of Maize. The fact is that this year there has been some maize surplus in Zambia and the region, as it happens everywhere in the agriculture sector, sometimes you over produce and other times you under produce. We are still in October and the payment for maize in surplus years continues right into January.”

The Centre for Trade policy and Development has observed that Zambia will not see the potential benefit of Maize trade to the economy if the marketing process remains politicized.

In its submission to the Expanded Committee on Government Estimates and Revenue at Parliament Buildings on Thursday, CTPD said increased state intervention in the maize marketing process crowds out the private sector and eventually stifles growth.

“CTPD continues to argue that the use of regulatory mechanisms such as export bans to artificially lower State intervention in the maize market must be minimal and clarity on whether FRA should be buying maize above its target, particularly when research evidence shows FRA has incurred financial losses when exporting excess maize due to several other costs incurred by the agency,” it said.

It added that there is need to bring on board private sector participation in Maize marketing and limit the role of FRA in maize marketing to strategic reserves only.

“This will help address current challenges of delayed payments to farmers due to funding gaps created when FRA goes beyond set targets for purchase,” it said.

The organisation noted that the development of the agricultural marketing bill and its enactment is critical in addressing current challenges in agricultural marketing in Zambia adding that a specific budget line supporting the development of this bill should have been provided in the 2015 national budget.

It said institutional reforms of the FRA are proposed by CTPD to ensure that FRA is restored to its original objectives and that policy measures and incentive such as maintaining an open border policy be instituted to encourage private sector participation in Maize trade particularly for regional and international markets where Zambia’s Maize can compete favourably.

“Efforts to improve the policy and market landscape have led to the development of three key pieces of legislation although none of which has been implemented so far. These include the Agricultural Credit Act 2010, which provides inter alia the legal framework for the implementation of a warehouse receipt system. This would pave way for certified storage of agricultural commodities and inject operating capital into agricultural value chains to the advantage of all stakeholders. Another piece of legislation drafted is the Commodity Exchanges Bill that should allow for Government oversight and regulation of commodity exchanges and allow for the robust enforcement of trading rules, principles and practices.”