By Steven Godfrey Mkweteza
Former president Joyce Banda, who is also the president of the People’s Party (PP) has asked government to consider formulating deliberate policies that aimed at promoting small and medium businesses so as to transform the people’s lives and county’s economic status.
Speakiing to the media after a business engagement with the Blantyre city vendors on Monday in Blantyre, Banda observed that for years the country has not been making strides in the small and medium businesses due to unfavorable operating environment.
” For many years now, we have been witnessing promises from varrious governments to improve the small and medium businesses. However, these promises have yielded nothing due to unfavorable operating policies in the sector,” she said
Banda said the development has resulted into the closures and downsizing of the businesses, hence the widespread theft and violence most especially by the youth.
Banda emphasized the urgent need to create an enabling environment for the small and medium businesses growth.
The former president said she was convinced that the roadmap to prosperity dictates that the country should have effective small and medium enterprises reforms that aim at creating an enabling climate for domestic investment.
Banda also stressed the need for transforming and restructuring the country’s instructions for production, manufacturing, distribution and trade sectors, which she said have been underperforming due to domestic and international shocks such as shortage of fuel, foreign exchange and high cost of exporting.
” I have been a vendor since 1980’s and I know this informal sector very well. I promise to transform this small and medium sector once voted into power during the September 16 tripatite elections,” she said
Among others, the former president said her government have already secured over 100,000 jobs from outside the country so as to narrow down the employment gap in the country.
” We will also introduce varrious loan initiatives and create special package targetting the domestic informal sector so as to boost the entrepreneuralship culture,” she said
In a separate interview, Blantyre city vendors association chairman Stain Manda said businesses haven’t been successful for the past years due to tough operating environment such as city by-laws.
” It’s tough to survive from the informal sector nowadays and it is deeply concerning that many of vendors are living in poverty due to tough operating environment that comes with huge taxes and impounding of our wares by the city officers,” he said
Manda added that many vendors from the Blantyre city markets closed shops and others trekked to other neighbouring countries for greener pastures due to tough operating environment.
