By Isaac Zulu
Green Party leader Peter Sinkamba says the four percent growth President Hakainde Hichilema talked about lacks numbers and will therefore wait to see what will be contained in the 2023 national budget.
Commenting on the Presidential speech that was recently presented to Parliament by President Hakainde Hichilema in which the Head of State indicated that the UPND administration wants to grow the country’s economy by four per cent in the medium term, Sinkamba said he had read through the Presidential speech, but it was more politically centred, saying the four per cent economic growth being talked about lacked numbers to support it and, therefore, he can only comment on the same after the presentation of the national budget.
And Sinkamba has said that it is difficult for maize centred agriculture to contribute meaningfully to the growth of the country’s economy.
“Our agriculture programme’s main thrust is to change this approach of maize centred agriculture to high value crop agriculture. We don’t think that this maize agriculture is going to take us anywhere,” Sinkamba explained. “Even in the agricultural sector we need to diversify into high value crop cultivation so that we get maximum benefits from this sector and grow the economy.”
He said that the Green Party has formulated an alternative programme of growing high value crops that can contribute to economic growth.
He explained that the current government has shelved the Statutory Instruments that were put in place to regulate the said programme, saying that because of that implementation process has slowed down.
“If you have been following, we began the issue of cannabis and natural herb cultivation, manufacturing and export. We have given our alternative programme and laws have been passed to that effect,” said Sinkamba. “To that regard, we have the Cannabis Act number 33 of 2021 and we have the Industrialisation Act number 34 of 2021, which have been shelved. The current government is not running as fast as they should to get these laws off the ground.”
