‘There is corruption at CEEC’

‘There is corruption at CEEC’
By SIMON MUNTEMBA
THE Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) performed poorly previously because of corruption at the Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC), acting Minister of Small and Medium Enterprise Development Chipoka Mulenga has charged.
Mr Mulenga told Parliament yesterday that cooperatives had performed poorly because the CEEC was not helpful as it only favoured the elite who usually do not pay back loans.
“We have taken a review as a new dawn Government to verify why the SMES in the country did not perform to the expectation. We are trying to delink politics from empowerment. We have come to understand that in the past, cooperatives could be formed but behind the cooperatives, it was not really for empowerment for a group but a few selected individuals that were already privileged,” he said.
The minister said under the UPND regime, the CEEC commission would not serve a few and disadvantage the rest.
“We cannot shy away from mentioning that corruption affected the performance of SMES in Zambia. Corruption reached a level where it became a norm. We are trying to detach that vice to business activities that inhibit their growth. There will be transparence on how we conduct ourselves in the running of SMES,” he said.
Mr Mulenga also attributed the poor performance of SMES in Zambia to lack of skill and training for SMES and cooperatives bearers.
He said going forward, Government would assign officers to training them to have the ability to run their businesses.
He was reacting to a question from Sikongo MP, Mayungo Simushi who wanted to know why the SMES performed poorly in the past despite having received funding, during the during the questions for oral answer.
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