By MILDRED KATONGO –

• PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu (right) with Agriculture Minister Given Lubinda before the start of the special Cabinet meeting at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka yesterday.
Picture by SALIM HENRY/STATE HOUSE

THE Patriotic Front (PF) has set sights on a revised party manifesto to realign focus on industrialisation of Zambia’s economy after successfully completing a programme of infrastructure development during its first term in office.
The party’s blueprint will set a new drive for President Edgar Lungu to take Zambia to higher economic zones, under a roadmap to be launched on May 21 this year at Heroes Stadium in Lusaka.
PF chief executive Davies Chama said the industrialisation phase would add further impetus to job creation, which has been the core of economic management over the past years.
The party is looking to polishing up its already achieved gains under President Lungu during his full five-year tenure.
Mr Chama said the party had been laying a solid foundation in terms of investing in infrastructure development, hence seeing it fit to revise the manifesto which will be launched soon.
He said in an interview yesterday that the party manifesto aimed to transform Zambia into an industrial and export hub of Africa.
Mr Chama said the PF was satisfied with what had been attained over the past years under late President Michael Sata and the incumbent Mr Lungu.
He said the new manifesto would have serious and massive development plans that would be felt by the Zambian people.
“We have already laid a foundation by investing in infrastructure. We have gone through our manifesto and already revised what we want it to contain. Our revised manifesto will have a focus on industrialisation and job creation,” Mr Chama said.
“As you are aware, we have been singing a song on diversification, but it is now that we diversify and focus on what will help the economy become more stable.
“In the last four and half years we have fulfilled what we promised our people, we have dealt with infrastructure development, labour reforms and delivered a new Constitution, among others. Now our revised manifesto has a new face, because it will focus on industrialisation and job creation. This will have a positive impact on the economy and the people.”
Mr Chama said the five-year roadmap was the party‘s doubled efforts to ensure there was job creation and poverty reduction.
He said with the development that the PF had brought since it came into power, the ruling party was confident that the Zambian people would continue to render support ahead of the August general elections.
Mr Chama said the new manifesto would be aggressive in terms of transforming and providing jobs that had been promised.
“This time the impact will be visible. We predict that more than 1.2 million jobs will be created when we focus on industrialisation in the next five years,” he said.