By Wisdom Mumera.
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Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South) – Government needs to reform parastatals into profit making institutions as a way of creating the necessary fiscal space to fund the health sector which is lacking equity and hampered by many challenges.
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Speaking on the opening day of the 6th edition of the Zim-Afro Medical and Health Fair in Harare, Economist and medical doctor Dr Chambara said parastatals were weighing down the government, reducing its ability to provide funds for the reformation of the health sector.
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The non-performing parastatals he said could be a major source of GDP if restructured.
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“In China parastatals contribute over 40% of the total GDP and that’s the scenario we should be looking at creating here. We need to reform our state enterprises so that from the proceeds we can be able to improve the health sector”.
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“Elsewhere parastatals have been transformed into playing catalytic roles for national development but most of our own are loss making and relying on the government, draining further the fiscus”, he said.
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Dr Chambara also pointed at the informal sector as another area that can be useful.
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“There is also need to harness the informal sector so that it can contribute to the GDP, thus growing the fiscus base. The backbone today are the SME’s. The days of the large corporations are probably coming to an end and so there is need to strengthen linkages between local SME’s and the global markets”.
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“Some of these things don’t even need money but require sheer political will to happen”, he said.
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The Zimbabwean health sector is currently besieged with a host of challenges emanating mostly from the poor economic conditions in the country leading to reports of lack of medicine and the lack of equity.
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According to statistics only about 1,2million of the 14 million population are currently under medical aid cover.
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The Zim-Afro Medical and Health Fair is being attended by various government and private sector medical personnel and will end on the 23rd of September.
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