By Isaac Zulu
Kantashi member of parliament Anthony Mumba has charged that the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises is not playing its relevant role of promoting and encouraging local economic activities in the country.
Mumba, in an interview, said that the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises has no clear structured policy and plan.
He said that the lack of a clear policy direction has been making it difficult for small businesses to access empowerment funds in order for them to grow their businesses.
“Has the Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises got a clear policy on its mandate of ensuring that small businesses thrive? The answer is no. This Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises has no clear structured policy and plan to ensure that small businesses graduate to another level,” Mumba said. “The Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises has failed to make any positive impact on the small entrepreneurs such that they are failing to grow. There are so many economic activities that might fall under this Ministry; including the marketeers’ booster loans, which has not been making any impact on their livelihoods and their businesses. There’s a provision of K1.8 million grants under the Constituency Development Fund and another K2.5 million empowerment loans. But the SMEs Ministry that is supposed to harness this economic activities is failing to attain this objective. This is because the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises is currently not playing its role of promoting and encouraging small businesses to thrive.”
He said that there is need to realign some empowerment programmes so that they get to appreciate the benefits of the said empowerment programmes.
Mumba said that, like the marketeers’booster loan facility, the Farmer Input Support Programme (FISP) has equally not made any positive impact on beneficiaries of the said programme.
“One of the things that is currently bothering me is that some small scale farmers who have been beneficiaries of the FISP programme is that the beneficiaries of the said programme have continued to getting farming inputs and fertiliser, generally, yet they are the same people who are lining up to get relief food from government. We have some small scale farmers, who should be the major contributors to food security, but they are the ones pursuing a route of food insecurity in the country.”
