ZNFU

Bank of Zambia (BoZ) has published a new regulation through statutory Instrument (SI) 32 aimed at monitoring the balance of payment. This comes barely two months after ZNFU and other private sector associations appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on Finance to discuss the amendments to the Bank of Zambia Act. This new SI gives the details of the procedures and regulations that need to be followed on among other things external private debt, record keeping on loan agreement, limitations of certain foreign currency transactions, monitoring of all the transactions, maintenance of foreign accounts for importers and exporters, the need for investors to deposit their pledges into the created foreign account, etc. The regulations have created cumbersome procedures which may add to the cost of doing business in terms of time it may take to clearly finish the whole process. The copies of the SI32 are available for members upon request.
 

The Zambia National Farmers’ Union (ZNFU) this week rejected ZESCO’s application to increase electricity tariffs by an average of 26 percent. This happened during the ZESCO Public Hearing Meeting organized by the Energy Regulations Board (ERB) at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre (MICC) in Lusaka. Speaking on behalf of ZNFU, the first Vice President, Dr Evelyn Nguleka submitted that the move by ZESCO to increase tariffs would make Zambia’s agriculture products expensive and uncompetitive thereby driving farmers out of business. Dr Nguleka noted that arguments advanced by ZESCO for increasing tariffs such as the need to move to cost reflective tariffs, inflation, exchange rate movements, and investments were all not new. She said ZESCO should consider implementing other innovative means to cut down on costs.