In search of Levy's economic legacy...

The state controlled Times of Zambia reporters have gone out in search of Levy's economic legacy, and sometimes just too eager to please:

"......The cost of finance was one of the tasks that president Mwanawasa set out to reduce, the private sector was lamenting about the huge costs incurred in production. To address these concerns, the government introduced the Private Sector Development (PSD) reform programme, which led to the merging of five investment promotion institutions to create the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA), promotion of private public partnership (PPP), reformation of institutions like the Immigration department, the Patents and Companies Registration Office (PACRO), review of investments licences and labour reforms among others......"

The cost of finance? A Freudian slip for sure. What they wanted to say was "the cost of doing business", of which the cost of finance might be one factor. As it turns out the slip probably illustrates the problem with their assessment - it too onesided. For if there's something that was not fully tackled by Levy, its precisely the high cost of finance!