By GIDEON NYENDWA
GOVERNMENT has not shown a clear roadmap on how they are going to create jobs for the youth aside from the teachers and health workers that were announced in the budget, People’s Alliance for Change (PAC) President Andyford Banda has said.
Mr Banda said the UPND government should know that jobs can not only be created in the civil service that is why they need to think outside those lines. He said the government must put in place policies that could support small and medium enterprises because that was the only way they could create more jobs. “Our worry is that the government has not done enough to create jobs. Jobs cannot only be created in government,” he said.
Mr Banda said there was a need to lower the cost of business that can only be achieved if policies were put in place to support that. He said the government should have an aggressive plan that would allow people to get opportunities in this country and change people’s lives. Mr Banda said UPND had been in government for close to three months now but they had not made any serious policy pronouncements that were going to help small businesses grow. Meanwhile, Mr. Banda also said the proposed electricity and fuel hike would be catastrophic for SMEs.
He said that move will increase the cost of doing business and this would lead to most businesses closing. Mr Banda said the proposed increments would not only have adverse impact on business but would also affect the cost of living. He said the reason why there were all these proposed increments was because the government wanted to get a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “I know this is the reason they want to increase the price of electricity and fuel,” Mr Banda said.
