DIANA CHIPEPO,  Lusaka

PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema yesterday took over chairmanship of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) with a call to create a borderless continent to ease trade. President Hichilema, who replaced Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, will be deputised by his Burundi counterpart Evariste Ndayishimiye. In his acceptance speech, Mr Hichilema promised to continue from where his predecessor has left without reinventing the wheel. The President called for the harmonisation of borders to ease trade on the continent. “I have argued before that we should not be proud of one stop border post,” he said. “There is nothing to be proud about that. With technology, a single window will watch everything. “Let’s have non-stop borders to reduce the cost of doing business, idle time along the way and that also means that our individual countries must reduce on internal roadblocks. “With technology we CLICK TO READ MORE