Government has with immediate effect slashed the Driving Schools registration and accreditation fee by fifty per cent in an effort to encourage skills development and job creation among youths.

Technology and Science Minister, Felix Mutati said government recognises the important role played by the private sector in the youth empowerment and job creation agenda and is therefore committed to strengthen the partnerships with the private sector.

Mr. Mutati said the transport and logistics sub sector is one that provides lot of job opportunities for young people and therefore the removal of barriers in this area is a matter of urgency.

He said the registration fee of K9,000 that driving schools pay to TEVETA has been identified as one of the barriers to acquisition of driving skills among youths, which prevents them from benefiting from the Constituency Development Fund skills development provision.

“We have taken a decision that the 9,000 that was being charged to register with Teveta be removed. First you the driving skills company must be registered with RTSA because we want to be assured with safety and other road usage parameters. Once you have registered with RTSA we will give you a discount of 50% and this will be valid up to the end of the year” he said

Mr. Mutati however emphasised that the discount applies on condition that the driving schools are registered with the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) to ensure safety and compliance.

Meanwhile, the Outgoing President of the Driving Schools Association of Zambia, Hope Kumalo has thanked the government for the move, stating that the fee has been unaffordable for many driving schools and a blockage to their growth.

“We really just want to thank you for your very prompt and positive response to our request. Indeed we are beginning to remove our doubts that we have put in place the right government. The thing that drew the young entrepreneurs to the UPND was your promise that your are going to groom and support SMEs and your statement yesterday has shown that your promises were genuine” she said.

The registration fee which was pegged at ZMW 9,000 has been reduced to K4,000 effective from Monday

ZESCO Limited says it is shifting from using copper electricity service cables to aluminum cables due to increased acts of vandalism and theft on its infrastructure.

Speaking during an anti-vandalism community sensitisation meeting in Mufulira yuesterday, ZESCO Head of Security, Hamulundo Kapika said the delay in reconnecting clients whose service cables have been stolen is because the company wants to switch from using copper to aluminum cables.

Mr. Kapika was responding to residents of Mufulira who complained that they have stayed for up to 10 months without electricity, after their service cables were vandalized and stolen.

“We have realized that these acts of vandalism will not stop unless we stop using copper cables, so we are switching to aluminum and this is what has caused delay in reconnecting our clients,” he said.

Mr. Kapika said continuous acts of vandalism are preventing the company from fulfilling its mandate to provide safe, adequate, and reliable electricity country wide.

He said despite the company’s commitment to increase access to electricity by clearing the backlog of new installations, the efforts keep being frustrated by acts of vandalism.

Mr. Kapika noted that in 2021, ZESCO lost a total of nine billion Kwacha due to vandalism, adding that this has made it difficult for ZESCO to connect new customers.

“Vandalism does not only have a direct cost on the company but it also has a lasting social and economic impact on the country,” he said.

Mr. Kapika warned that according to the law, vandalism of ZESCO property carries a minimum sentence if 10 years imprisonment.

And when responding to complaints by residents, that some ZESCO employees are involved in the acts of vandalism, and are using the cables to privately connect clients at a fee, Mr.Kapika urged members of the public to report such officers, saying ZESCO will not tolerate such acts of corruption.

“Report those people to us and we will deal with them,” he said.

And Mufulira District Commissioner, Saboi Kabika urged members of the community to corporate with ZESCO and the Zambia Police Service in order to eradicate vandalism.

“The people behind these acts come from the community so please do not protect them, you need to report them to the police,”Ms. Kabika said.

And some residents accused ZESCO employees of being behind the acts of vandalizing electricity service cables.

The residents alleged that when they report to ZESCO that their service cables have been stolen, they are told that it is not known when they can be reconnected as there are no cables in stock.

The residents alleged that they are secretly approached by ZESCO employees who claim that they have cables and offer to come and secretly reconnect them at a fee.

The Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) has assured that ongoing geo-political between Russian and Ukraine will not affect the supply of wheat and wheat products in the country as Zambia produces sufficient corn to meet the demand.

And ZNFU has reiterated its call to government to maintain the ban on the importation of agricultural products such as onion and processed potatoes.

Zambia National Farmers Union president Jervis Zimba says the union will work closely with government to ensure sustained and stable prices of wheat products in view of happenings in Ukraine which is a major supplier of wheat for most African countries.

He was speaking in Choma yesterday during a farmer’s engagement meeting.

Mr. Zimba explained that most farmers in the country have embraced crop diversification and that a good number of farmers are already involved wheat production, giving the country comparative advantage.

And Mr. Zimba has appealed to government to sustain the ban on importation agricultural products such as onions, potatoes and powdered milk whose production is sufficient to meet the country’s local demand.

He has noted that such a ban would facilitate increased production among local farmers and thereby creating opportunities for the agricultural sector to thrive.

Meanwhile, Greenfield Managing Director Jacob Chisenga says agro dealers will continue supporting government efforts to grow the agriculture sector through supply of climate smart agricultural inputs.

Mr. Chisenga has commended government for creating an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.

Kasama Chamber of Commerce has described the impending increase in fuel and food prices as inevitable.

Kasama Chamber of Commerce Secretary, David Chanda attributed this to the on-going conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr. Chanda explained that it would also be difficult for government to control the country’s inflation rate due as prices of commodities are expected to skyrocket.

“As a Country we have been in a crisis trying to put our economy back on the road and these external factors are going to make it difficult for us to achieve goals both in the short term and long term,” he said.

He further noted that the monthly review of fuel pump price is making planning and projection extremely difficult at both business and family level.

Mr. Chanda has urged the public not to be too dependent on imports but to find home ground lasting solutions that will be predictable in terms of fuel pricing.

“We can’t always be left in sought of situations where every little thing that happens somewhere else affects our planning,” Mr. Chanda said.

Japanese Ambassador to Zambia and COMESA, Mizuuchi Ryuta and Finance and National Planning Minister Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane, MP, yesterday morning conferred to discuss development cooperation.

During the meeting held at the Ministry of Finance and National Planning Headquarter in Lusaka, Ambassador Mizuuchi Ryuta reiterated Japan’s strong support for Zambia’s debt restructuring process, and added that, the world’s 4th largest economy “also looks forward to the IMF board approval of Zambia’s programme once all the processes are completed.”

Mr. Ryuta confirmed that a private sector mission of Japanese firms, mostly those based in South Africa, will visit Zambia during the course of the year for information exchange and investment exploration purposes.

At the meeting, Dr Musokotwane thanked Japan for its unwavering support for Zambia’s debt restructuring process and other developmental affairs.

He took the opportunity to invite the Japanese private sector to develop strong partnerships with their Zambian counterparts so as to optimize the best of both worlds in industrial development, manufacturing, commerce, and trade.

“We want to see more Japanese investors coming to set-up businesses in Zambia in collaboration with the local private sector for the mutual benefit of both parties,” he said.

The key beneficiary sectors of Japan’s (through JICA) cooperating and assistance in Zambia are education, health, energy and mining, and water resources and disaster management. Others include transportation, natural resource and energy, private sector development, and agricultural and rural development.

Dr. Musokotwane was accompanied at the meeting by Secretary to the Treasury Felix Nkulukusa and Permanent Secretary for Economic Management and Finance, Danies Chisenda.

Meanwhile, Zambia’s public sector debt rose 18% to $31.74 billion by the end of 2021 from end-June. This is according to a Ministry of Finance document published this week. This is at a time when Zambia is negotiating to restructure its crippling debt.

Foreign currency debt accounts for 54% of Zambia’s borrowing, rising 2% in the second half of 2021 to $17.27 billion.

Local currency debt jumped 43% to $14.47 billion.

In 2020, Zambia became the first country to have defaulted in the pandemic era, buckling under a debt burden of more than 120% of GDP.

It reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in December 2021 on a $1.4bn three-year extended credit facility.

Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane told Reuters in February that he hoped to get a formal IMF agreement signed off in May, but the timeline was deemed ambitious by analysts as the group of Paris Club creditors and China have yet to form a creditor committee.

President Haikainde Hichilema pledged to deal with the “unsustainable” debt burden when sworn in as Zambia’s new leader in August 2021.

Kitwe Chamber of Commerce vice president, Emmanuel Mbambiko has urged youths that will benefit from the Black mountain to responsibly use the money they will get to start up sustainable business enterprises.

Speaking in an interview in Kitwe yesterday, Mr. Mbambiko said mining operations at the black mountain are a short term engagement as such beneficiaries from the empowerment initiative should be looking at funding sustainable businesses using the proceeds from there.

“In the past, the tendency by youths is that they use what they realize from the black mountain to drink and buy cars which do not last, you cannot call this scavenging empowerments because it does not move them from poverty, these youths should be given sustainable empowerment instead,” He said.

Mr. Mbambiko has since urged government to deploy these youths in need of employment to new mines such as the areas where gold has been discovered and allow them to pick gold on behalf of government and get a salary for the work.

He further called on government to remove the people that benefited from the black mountain in past so that new ones can also benefit.

He noted that if that is not done, the same people will continue benefiting from the facility at the expense of others.

Mr. Mbambiko also suggested that Kitwe council can also engage the youths to form cooperatives that can be collecting markets and bus station fees so that they can ensure sanity in these trading places.

He said the council can just be monitoring so that the cooperatives engaged does not engage in misappropriations.

“ For the first time in a long time councils have been given the power to collect market and bus stations fees but we do not seen to know where this money is going because these public places have remained dirty, youths can be engaged to collect these fees and ensure that these areas are clean,” He said.

The handover of the 30 per cent of the black mountain to the youths and women is one way of empowering the youths and women.

And Wusakile Ward Councilor, Charles Silomba said he is yet to see how the projected empowerment of the youths and women will help to eradicate poverty among the people on the Copperbelt.

Mr. Silomba who is a Patriotic Front Councilor appealed to the New Dawn government to stick to its planned way of empowering the people unlike serving the interest of its few party officials.

“The initiative looks good, we hope it will achieve its goals and I will be the happiest being the councillor for Wusakile where the black mountain is, if the people get the empowerment as expected,” Mr. Silomba said.

The youths and women have been told to form cooperatives through which they can be empowered with financial capital from the black mountain operations proceeds.