NAREP Manifesto and Vision. The NAREP would focus on Health, Education and Infrastructure as the core sectors. The party would adopt a governance framework based on principles from a philosophy called the ‘Just Third Way’. According to NAREP, its ideology was shaped by the acute poverty and deprivation of opportunity faced by some Zambians. The pillar of NAREP’s vision lies in the attainment of three objectives: implementation of efficient and effective governance, implementing measures that achieve greater energy independence and the implementation of a rural and urban modernisation drive across the country. Under its governance programme, NAREP promises that it would establish a provincial and communal governance framework for civic driven change. NAREP would also reduce all central government expenditure and introduce efficiency through performance based accountability. Accordingly, NAREP also promises to direct more resources towards promoting development at grassroots and community level and ensuring greater decentralisation and local decision making. The party would also provide transparency into Government operations, expenditure and decision making. The whole process would involve a complete review and improvement of the structure of Government and bringing development decision making more direct to the people. Mr Chipimo and his team also promise to restructure Cabinet and publishing performance metrics, targets and deadlines. They would also create communal assemblies with stakeholders at ward level besides the construction of infrastructure and proving training of people and ward levels. In its manifesto NAREP proposes that its government would have only 12 ministers namely, Ministry of Health and Human Services, Ministry of Education and Child Development, Ministry of Energy, mining, infrastructure and Technology, Ministry of Youths, sport and Culture, Ministry of Gender, Decentralization and Community Development, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Tourism Environment and Natural Resources, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, Ministry of Defence and Security and lastly the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry. According to NAREP, performance targets for each ministry would be made public and each minister’s performance would be gauged against the target. On the civil service, NAREP states in its vision and manifesto that its key priority would be to incorporate broad technological platform for electronic governance (e-governance). Under NAREP, the Government would operate on an electronic basis particularly with regard to accountability and the delivery of health, education and infrastructure development. NAREP once elected into government, would also ensure that the civil society is retrained to enable it handle the electronic approach in the management system. On local government, NAREP would bring the traditional chiefs in the national planning process and allow them to be more central in the decision making process of the Government. Certain management functions of the local councils would also be outsourced such as planning, budgeting, expenditure, review and accounting. The locally elected councillors would have oversight of the process. On the energy, NAREP’s manifesto refers its initiatives to the energy and agriculture sectors as the “Technograrian Revolution”. It proposes energy sector independence and reduced reliance of imported energy sources. NAREP believes agriculture is a tool for unlocking wealth from the country’s vast arable land while at the same time harnessing the abundant water resource. The plan once applied would transform the rural landscape into active centres of major economic development. Some of the benefits from the initiative would include, employment opportunities shifting from urban to rural areas, rural ownership of means of production, natural decongestion of the urban areas sustainable rural expansion, agriculture and industrial development of vast untapped land and the better productive use of the water resource across the country. Energy To develop ten energy sector, the NAREP manifesto and vision states that the party would carry out an audit to determine available land for the cultivation of sugar cane, Jatropha, sorghum, camelina, palm oil and other sources of bio-fuels on an industrial scale. NAREP also plans according to its vision and manifesto to immediately undertake a study to confirm the feasibility of introducing a policy that would make it mandatory for every liter of petrol and every litre of diesel sold in the country to contain a minimum amount of ethanol in the case of petro and palm oil in the case of diesel. This percentage of ethanol and palm oil could gradually be increased until Zambian vehicles have over 90 per cent of them running on fuel efficient ethanol blended fuel produced within Zambia. NAREP also proposes strategic alliances with foreign manufacturing interests to promote the local production of machinery and equipment to support the industrial spin-offs from the new Government policies. On infrastructure development, NAREP proposes that it will come up with modernized housing, hospitals, schools, roads and commercial recreation centres. It also intends to have a land audit to be complete within nine months of commencement and made public According to NAREP, once its manifesto and vision are applied, Zambia would become an energy super-power for the region, it would also become a breadbasket and hub of infrastructure.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:25:59 +0000
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