ZAMBIA has sold off 234 state-owned companies out of the 280 earmarked for privatisation in just under eight years, President Frederick Chiluba announced on Friday. The number represent almost 84% of the total number of parastatals that were intended to be sold off to private enterprises when the Chiluba admininstration embarked on a massive privatisation programme in 1992. Some of the enterprises going over to mainly foreign and in particular South African companies are the Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM), the dairy, and brewery firms. Chiluba said Zambia’s power generator, the Zambia Electricity Supply Company, will be privatised in the last phase of the exercise, as will the country’s largest Telecommunication Company.
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