. DODIA

By FLAVIOR CHISHALA –
THE Private Sector Development Association (PSDA) has described the year 2015 as tough owing to the many economic challenges Zambia is facing.
PSDA chairperson Yusuf Dodia said the country failed to balance the Budget and meet some of its objectives such as reducing the inflation rate to below 10 and Gross Domestic Production (GDP) growth.
Mr Dodia said the year started with the presidential election which was not budgeted for but money was pulled from the Treasury to finance it.
He said challenges such as raising of fuel prices and the recent hike of electricity tarrifs to 300 per cent had made the cost of doing business generally high by 50 per cent.
Mr Dodia said that the pressure of the strong United States dollar against the Kwacha was another factor that contributed immensely to the bad performance of the economy.
He said more challenges came in when mining companies disagreed with the Government over the mining tax regime which resulted in the reduction of the mineral royalty tax from 20 per cent to six per cent.
“This year has been tough on the economy of our nation and we look forward to a better and prosperous 2016 given that we have already started finding solutions for the challenges of 2015,” he said.
Mr Dodia said he was hopeful that the economy would pick up next year despite the challenges of financing the tripartite polls which could drift the attention of the Government away from development to elections.