SMALL and Medium Enterprise Development Minister Elias Mubanga recently revealed that only 10,000 out of the 46,000 SMEs that accessed empowerment loans are paying them back. Put simply, this means only two out of ten people who access these loans repay them. This is a serious problem for the initiative. The Citizens Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC) has a very important mandate to promote broad-based economic empowerment of citizens, especially those who have been marginalised or disadvantaged. This is an initiative which, if successfully implemented, has the potential to lift millions of Zambians out of poverty within a short period of time. It is one of the best initiatives to come from government, and yet, as things stand, it is doomed...