By MAYA NTANDA –
THE National Traders and Marketeers Association of Zambia (NATMAZ) have commended President Edgar Lungu for empowering marketeers on the Copperbelt with funds to sustain their businesses.
President Lungu at the weekend said K1.6million has been reserved for marketeers in Chingola, Kitwe and Ndola to help sustain and grow their businesses.
Mr Lungu said he would soon launch micro schemes, where loans would be given to marketeers and the process would commence with Chingola.
NATMAZ president Goodson Mofya and general secretary Chrispin Musunka said in a joint statement in Kitwe yesterday, that the President’s decision was commendable.
NATMAZ said the President’s timely initiative to visit the province and interact with traders, marketeers street vendors, buses and taxi drivers including the Luyando Service Society to learn and obtain first hand information on all the challenges affecting them, was a good gesture.
NATMAZ was grateful to the President for coming up with empowerment programmes to bail out the financially crippled members in the informal sector that had now been able to sustain the growth of their businesses to higher and profitable levels.
“The K1.6million project for three major markets on the Copperbelt will indeed go a long way in uplifting the living standards for our members and will ultimately make significant contributions to growth in the country,” the statement said.
The marketeers said Mr Lungu had demonstrated care for the down-trodden in the sector through his bold resolve to constantly promote pro-poor policies aimed at promoting and protecting interests of the disadvantaged in the informal sector.
NATMAZ also appealed to Mr Lungu to extend the programme to all the 10 provinces in the country for economic development and prosperity to take root.