Government is working on a list of goods and services that should not be imported into the country to help protect the local currency.
Commerce Deputy Minister Miles Sampa says it is an acceptable that the country has continued to import chickens, eggs and vegetables which are readily available in Zambia.
Mr. Sampa says it will be illegal to import the banned goods and that anyone found doing so will be prosecuted.
And the Deputy Minister says his ministry has opened two district clusters in Isoka for soya beans to produce cooking Oil and in Petauke for groundnuts to produce peanut butter.
Mr. Sampa was speaking in Siavonga on Tuesday when he opened a media-training workshop on competition and consumer protection.
And Competition and Consumer Protection executive Director Chilufya Sampa says most Zambian consumers do not know their rights.
Mr. Sampa says the commission is investigating Dangote and Zambezi Portland for alleged price fixing.
The Minister says this is after Zambezi Portland allegedly approached Dangote asking their mode of pricing their cement.
Mr. Sampa also says the commission is also investigating Lafarge Cement and Zambia Sugar for over pricing.
He also said the commission raided four Bakeries on the Copperbelt for over pricing their bread and are being investigated.
This ban, that ban and you do not even see what obligations you have under various international trade agreements that you have signed! You do not need bans all the time to grow local industries and conserve forex because you may be hit with reciprocal action on your export items! You talk and hastily introduce laws without looking at how to enforce them and their effects! If the listed products are the one responsible for forex shortage how much is lost per year due to such importations? How are you going to ensure that nobody brings in these products when they come disguissed in various forms through shoprite,game and spar your favorite investors? The best is to link forex systems,banks and bureaux d’echange to central bank to interact with customs systems.
…continued: Otherwise everything you are just talking will fail like SI 55 and SI 32. You need to make a requirement that anybody externalising money to import does so through their Bank and specify what they are importing so that you can be able to monitor goods as they come at the border in line with the forex they requested. Then also you should find a way to track how forex transactions in Bureaux d’echange complies with limits that you have set by looking at systems that have been set up other countries! Bureaux systems are supposed to be linked to central monitoring centre with transactions monitored and Identities of people transacting being recorded electronically so that audits are easier to conduct to prevent crime money from entering or leaving country.
This PF Government has completely and utterly FAILED to manage even one commodity that Zambia has international trade with which is copper.
Now you are expecting them to efficiently manage hundreds of different items, each with their own set of requirements??? It cannot work. We will just revert to UNIP days with import licences and NOTHING IN THE SHOPS!
Get real!
The 2016 President for PF is right lets support him, trade or no trade agreements we become self consious, condoms should not be imported as well, let alone no foreigner to marry a zambian as they take forex or share between two countries
“Commerce Deputy Minister Miles Sampa says it is an acceptable that the country has continued to import chickens, eggs and vegetables which are readily available in Zambia.”
I’m not sure if it is ka Sampa or LT who do not know the difference between ‘unacceptable’ and ‘an acceptable’.
Anyway, I’m always the first one to say that this is Zambia, not England. As long as we understand each other, that’s all that matters!
Mr Sampa please read this.
There is Nestle imported water in Melissa Supermarket.How reckless can we be as a country in the midst of this forex shortage?
@ Malion (and Mr. Sampa!) read this:
You can’t manage what people buy with their money! Simple. If people are willing to pay for imported water so be it.
Rather, the “good side” of the devaluation is that it will make Zambian products, including water, much more competitive (lower cost) compared with imports. The market will do that all by itself pretty fast and without a bunch of jumping up and down about what’s on the shelves at Melissa or political posturing from the likes of Sampa. Truthfully, Sampa’s proposal (and perhaps your comment) are the only things I see here that are reckless!
@Zambia is ours. Such are well thought out ideas keep it up but you must also commend Miles for his ideas. Its such a relief to read such articles and not the blame game most bloggers are involved in. Controls must also be put on Jigis puffs sweets and alcohols and soft drinks a lot of forex wasted. Who will die if you don’t eat jigis
Thanks my compatriot! Most countries have some form of control on forex transactions. Some countries do not allow Western Union to send out forext but only to receive and account holders are limited to how much forex they can request from banks to send out and yet some of these countries have more diversified sources of forext than Zambia! Indeed why should we import so easily even things that we can make? There is even imported ordinary bread in shoprite from sasko all the way from South Africa when most of the time we produce enough wheat! Why should we import pineapples when our own are rotting in our farms in NW Province a few KMs from Lusaka,Copperbelt our main consumption areas. Managing the use a scarce resource is wisdom and no one wil shout “exchange controls “if we do it…
This ka samba is just hopeless. How long has he presided over that ministry only to now find out we import eggs??? He is only good at buying taxis for caders in matero.
He has been in the ministry for so long yet he is acting surprised at what we import.
I think it is good for the country. However, I still do not understand why the government machinery only starts working when the forex disappears, and is idle when country is awash with dollars. Cursed Nation indeed!
Cabbage omelette protectionism by cabbage omelette intellectual.
Hon. Sampa, PLEASE ban import of Jameson, Black Label, Vodka, Hennessy and Castle if you have guts!!!
Good idea! We might even get a sober President that is capable of facing the people and giving us a Press conference!
And maybe him and his Amos Chanda will wake up and realise that it was their careless and stupid comments about re-introducing forex controls that caused the panic that made the Kwacha depreciate!
how do u expect the government to to manage the copper fully when prices are just fixed for them. Its like am selling tomatoes then the buyer is fixing prices for me and definetly he will put an amount he has no problems paying.
In principle, same price “fixing” applies also to eggs and cabbages.
Okay
This is cosmetic! Big corruptly overpriced oil/fuel contracts (50m usd per month) with kenya’s Dalbit will swallow the limited forex savings (2m usd per month) from vegetables. This is being pennywise but a pound FOOLISH! Surely do we need a small Kenyan firm to overcharge import oil/fuel for us. Can’t we do this ourselves? What a country!
This PF clown thought he would be President?
He is not even intelligent enough to be a deputy minister. Any first year economics student knows more about commerce, trade and industry than that!
Another example of totally incompetent persons appointed to positions that they are completely unsuited to.
That’s PF for you. Now you wonder why we have load shedding????