HH Urges Private Sector to Drive Reforms

President Hakainde Hichilema wants Zambia's businesses to step forward as architects of reform, shaping the changes that government can then carry out alongside them to speed up the country's economic transformation.

The appeal came as the President addressed Private Sector Day at Lusaka's Mulungushi International Conference Centre, where he restated his government's determination to back enterprise. Lasting growth, he argued, depends on government and business pulling in the same direction. Left to its own devices, he conceded, the state tends towards inefficiency, which is precisely why partnerships with the private sector matter so much.

Crucially, the President wanted businesses to do more than simply suggest reforms. They should also keep watch over how those reforms are carried out, auditing progress so that hard-won gains are not quietly undone down the line. Enterprise, he said, represents a window of opportunity, and his government intends to hold that window open by nurturing the conditions in which firms can invest, hire and generate wealth.

Turning to his administration's headline economic goals, captured in the 10-10-5-3-3-1-1-1 agenda, he urged the business community to keep its eyes fixed firmly on results. The targets span 10,000 megawatts of power, 10 million tonnes of maize, five million tourists, three million tonnes apiece of copper and soya, a million tonnes of wheat, a billion dollars in beef exports and, newly added, a million tonnes of sugar. Copper alone, he observed, would demand roughly 8,000 megawatts.