Economist Noel Nkoma says investment in human capital and infrastructure development is important in an economy such as Zambia as the two complement each other and it is not possible to employ successfully human capital without infrastructure.
Speaking in an interview with the Zambian Business Times-ZBT, Nkoma said there is sufficient investment in human capital as far as skills development and education is concerned, among others therefore human capital must be deployed efficiently as the right infrastructure is in place.
Nkoma said the issue around investment in infrastructure development is not debatable but what many people have been questioning is at what cost a particular infrastructure was put up.
“Are we able to maximize the benefits from the resource that went into putting up that infrastructure without necessarily having to suffocate the economy, that is the issue and not that infrastructure was wrong. Infrastructure is very important but at what cost was it procured”, he said.
Nkoma however noted that it is not possible to absorb all the human capital on the market noting that the economy has not been growing as there has been negative growth, which is minus 4% GDP.
He added that Zambia can only absorb a number beyond the over 40,000 teachers and health workers government is yet to recruit when the economy begins to grow, and this means that the economy should be growing at 8% GDP and above to be able to have an impact for returns on the job market.
Nkoma said there is need for Zambia to invest more in high impact sectors such as agriculture, energy and other sub sectors of the economy such as value addition.
“In the mining sector for example, we are just producing copper but we are not investing in value addition so all those things should be looked at in total context”, he said.
