In a recent speech addressed to lawmakers in Lusaka, Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu announced the split of five ministries which will result in the creation of five new ones that will help the country to improve economic growth.
According to President Lungu, the split is a way to promote a dynamic and strategically focused diversification that will improve the implementation, monitoring and coordination of national programs.
The ministries to split will be mines and energy, finance, transport, work, supply and communication, education, and agriculture and livestock.
However, President Lungu has not released yet neither an execution date nor the heads of the new ministries according to Bloomberg.
The decision to split the ministries was well received by the National Union for Small Scale Farmers of Zambia (NUSSFZ) whose Director General, Mr. Frank Kayula, explained that among other outcomes from the split the transfer of the cooperatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to the Ministry of Commerce will enhance vegetable products’ production and exports by spurring rural industrialisation.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) production and exports of vegetable products has grown in the decade from 2002 to 2012 from USD 229 million to USD 973 million representing 17.45% of total exports and becoming the second largest group after gold.
Among other expected outcomes, the split of the Ministry of Mines and Energy will help to properly address the Zambia’s power shortage and become the country an electricity exporter within the next 13 months, added President Lungu.
According to Bloomberg, the power shortage is mainly product of Lake Kariba’s low water levels which has affected the hydropower plants’ power generation.
However, the country has a program to add 600 MW from solar power and 400 MW from coal-fired plants that will help to easy the shortage by January 2016, Bloomberg reported.
