Government  will soon start auditing foreign companies to ascertain the pledges they made when getting incentives from the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) before investing in the country. 

Commerce Minister Robert Sichinga said the government was concerned about  the performance of some investors and that, since ZDA lived up to its promise by offering them  incentives, it was now  up to the investors to show what they had done to fulfil their pledges. 

Mr Sichinga said  this when he toured Illovo owned Zambia Sugar Company in Mazabuka where the Minister checked on their relationship between the Sugar firm and the business community. 

“We will soon audit every single investor to see if they have kept to  their promise when  they applied for incentives.This ranges from jobs created and dealings with local firms,” the Minister said. 

This statement by Mr Sichinga comes just a month after the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) announced that it would soon start checking  on all companies including mining firms which it had allowed to merge. 

The CCPC wanted to see the companies stick to the same pledges and that,  such mergers did not result into unnecessary loss of employment for Zambians workers. 

Mr Sichinga said most companies that had received incentives from ZDA had promised to create employment for Zambians and help raise among other things, the companies’ contribution to the Gross domestic Product (GDP). 

He also added that the investors had promised to bring into the country more investments and that, Government would go back to the drawing board to check their performance against the pledges as this was the only way to ensure that foreign investments benefitted Zambians. 

The minister said Government was also interested in knowing the capital flow into the country because preliminary  investigations had shown that some investors only  brought equipment into the country and not money. 

“Information we have is that some of these investors have brought in equipment as their investment pledge and then borrowed working capital from local banks,  an issue  that was not in the  initial agreement. 

“If anything, the practice is  disadvantaging local companies from borrowing and  these are the inconsistencies we do not want and we shall access and make sure the investors comply with the rules of  their pledges ahead of getting the ZDA preferential treatment,” he said. Times of Zambia