The Minister of Finance says empowerment policies such as the citizen Economic Empowerment Commission are not helpful as they only favour the elite who usually do not pay back loans.
Alexander Chikwanda also says the empowerment commission only encourages corruption because of patronage.
Mr Chikwanda who was speaking to businessmen during a Zambia Association of chambers of commerce and industry dinner, also said empowerment programs only make people dependant.
He feels that government should instead create an environment for citizens to prosper through personal creativity rather than offering
them money as empowerment.
And Mr Chikwanda also advised the Chambers of Commerce President Geoffrey Sakulanda not to use dinners to resolve problems with government over the economic environment.
Mr Chikwanda says dinners are not ideal because most people are too tired or hungry to concentrate on the speeches made during the event.
Mr Sakulanda has listed a number of problems facing the private sector which included high cost of doing business and access to finance.
ZNBC
This is not a honey-moon-government. The Finance minister is really a serious think.
I like every thing the Minister has said here. I wish PF came into power 20 years ago. Keep it up guys.
What about NDb
Mr. Chikwanda is entitled to his opinion but he should know that the idea behind CEEC is a great one as it was meant to help the vulnerable (targeted) groups have access to capital for investment but unfortunately the selfish elite and cadre pleasing attitude ruined this opportunity.
Zwaaaaaaaa!!!!!! Wind it up. Lost its original meaning.
“The Minister of Finance says empowerment policies such as the citizen Economic Empowerment Commission are not helpful as they only favour the elite who usually do not pay back loans.”
Well said, you hypocrite. The elite like Mmembe and the Nchitos.
Yes, Hypocrite, Thou Art Chikanda`s name
Let mmembe and nchito pay back the loan, it was you chikwanda and musa mwenye who asked DBZ to forget the loan, so what are you talking about?
What a zinger! great!
If at all you mean what you say, let the K14billion be paid back please by Mmembe and Nchito and suspending the judges
This man always impresses me. He is definitely right on this one. CEEC wastes a lot of resources which could otherwise go to local councils to carry out properly costed projects. Instead, very few people even know where it goes. Successive governments have usurped the powers of local councils and concentrated all spending decisions in the hands of a few people in Lusaka, leaving councils broke and all towns with decaying infra-structure. The minister is simply articulating PF’s vision of decentralization. Anyone who criticizes this speech simply lacks analytical thinking and should join UPND.
For some reason, Alex is the most rational head in the PF government.
Mr. Chikwanda never ceases to amaze me. First it was that those for Windfall Tax are lunatics. Now it is the CEEC idea, which he considers corruption! I don’t agree with him at all. In times of crisis, like the one in Zambia with unemployment exceeding 40% (yes this is a crisis), it is the role of government to help companies be robust so that they employ more people. Elsewhere, they bail out ailing firms or provide subsidy or tax holiday etc to help small business survive. That is what CEEC was supposed to be doing helping ideas become business and thus reducing unemployment. I see nothing wrong. What he should have been talking about is providing measures to curb abuse and greedy, so that right people benefit and not just not rubbishing such a good idea.
The scheme as i knew it was meant to empower people with insightful creative business plans to help and promote economic growth.
U`r right. A creative concept needs financing in order to bring it to tangible and meaningful fruition. Corruption is all over the map and which is the better  place to start cleaning it than the government.
chikwanda u a double tounged fool. One minute u order DBZ to writte off 14 billion from Mmbembe & nchito bros in another u ar complaining about non payment of ceec loans. U should lead by example & stop being hypocritical u old fool
K14Billion Back!
True, Support you 100% CEEC is just full of corrupt people, the whole board of its Directors; Give them a proper Business Plan as Young Entrepreneurs. They will not even look at it. They want favors and also be part of it. Very Fo.olish people. They should just close it down.
Yes, but if the government maintains corrupt people like Sebastian Zulu, M.Nchito etc, Does n`t this encourage others to continue with the vice?
I want a CEEC loan. Does anyone know someone close who got a loan without patronage?
its true ..the way the elite like nchito n mmembe haven’t paid back!
Just rhetoric from pf , nothing has changed. All corrupt all the way through. Same as MMD
Well said… I like this kind of thinking
Those of you who keep going on about Mmembe need to know that long before becoming president, RB ran a bank which eventually collapsed owing a lot of money. He was never asked asked to pay the money back because it was a business venture gone wrong. Using the judiciary to settle political scores, as RB tried to do, needs to emigrate to Zimbabwe.
The same people who ruined the original concept of CEEC (read, Mable Mung’omba and cronies) are now milking Zamtel. Â So what is new Mr Chikwanda? Â It is the execution, and not the idea, that is important. Â Let us have less talk and more proper doing PLEASE!
@Mukame, I like your comment . Indeed the councils need some revenue to maintain the decaying infrastructure. Councils were dealt a heavy blow by taking away much of the housing stock from them. At least through rentals they could pay and do this and that. Now the only job they know is giving plots, albeit in a haphazard manner. You cant even have straight roads and proper house numbers. No street trees and lighting. No new sewer lines…. awew Zambia is dead. CB townships are like villages.
I honestly wonder why Honurable Chikeanda was appointed as minister of finance. Honourable minister you ,may have invested heavily in PF you did a great job under UNIP as finance minister. Please afford a younger and more innovative non northerner to run national finances. CEEC was a noble concept for ordinary Zambians, President Mwanawasa meant well. The very thing you are condemning is what put you in that seat. You and i know very well that the government cannot instruct banks to lend money ‘equitably’ to ordinary Zambians. The levels of corruption are still toxic high, thats why MMD after Levy turned it into a slash fund. Unless you have a better methodology of affordable capital for ordinary Zambians spare our ears drums.