By C.Maka
My House Number is: PLOT 1978654399745 Lusaka, Nyumba Yanga.
Find me if you can!
I have a dream that one day Zambia will assign meaningful house numbers and stop using plot numbers.I have a dream that Zambian Houses will one day have proper addresses well enough for our brains to remember.
Maka pleads with the Power that be.I am appealing to the Government and all Councils in Zambia to consider giving Brain-Friendly House numbers in every street and should start at House No 01.
Plot numbers are council reference numbers not good for a man in the street. Imagine my address PLOT No 1978654399745, how can you know if you have gone past the house you are looking for?
All even numbers would be on one side and that gives us an idea where the house we are looking for is. Even industries in the same street should start from No 01. I doubt if you can find a house in London or New York if they used PLOT numbers.
Check our adverts “ You can find us at plot No 1976543 Chilimbulu Road Industrial area”. What an address!
I entered it in Google maps and it got lost.I appeal to all Zambians to support this and raise concern for the absurd addressing l have seen in our cities.
Perhaps, the places are meant not be found. Loool.
Spot on…
FOR THAT MY BROTHER YOU WILL HAVE TO MOVE TO EUROPE BECAUSE I DONT THINK THIS CAN HAPPEN IN ZAMBIA BECAUSE MOST OF OUR STREETS ARE NOT EVEN SIGN POSTED.POOR PLANNING BY THE LCC. I FULLY SUPPORT YOUR VEIW
Some street signs have been vandalised by people with a criminal mind.
Perhaps the respective town councils should build concrete posts for road names.
The British colonialists left you a blue print. Unfortunately you wanted to create your ‘own history and identity’.
What is unfortunate about protecting one’s history and identity?
They are non-existant.
The system is run by unschooled morons and you would be expecting too much to find some semblance of order.
“well said but we have no capacity nor equipment, let alone transport to renumber all houses and streets in zambia as the task is a mammoth one and will require alot of money to accomplish. anyway my govt. has engaged our corporating partners to see if they can look for a company or investor to carry out the exercise on our behalf. i can assure you that this govt will do everything in its power to ensure that all street names and numbers are also shown once the corporating partners come back to us before 2016. meanwhile i would urge all those failing to locate their houses on time to see their local authorities for guidance”.said the minister of local gavt. lol!
Yet funds are readily available for self-imposed bye elections
I new everything was messed up in 1990 after high school, i had just joined a society of so much confusion. Their priority has always been TOLYEMO.
This is very possible and a very good suggestion all we need are street names and if they are 10 or 20 houses in that particular street they are simply numbered from 1 to 20 e.g. 12 Mongu street or 23 Kasempa Rd. followed by the suburb/area and city in which suburb is located. If we had The PF move so fast to name airports and create districts this fast then this is the easiest that every district councils can sit and implement a friendly numbering system within the shortest possible time.
taxi or minibus drivers can do that job for you. just that you got have a heavy pocket..
all in all is good observation and i will support that.
It all comes back to poor town planning. Wrong people in positions fattening themselves instead of doing the right job. big challenge for councils, which dont have the capacity, because those at the helm of making decisions are not interested in progressive ideas from their educated and visionary subordinates. too much backward thinking in this country!!
Good Idea. True Ba Maka. In developed countries, all structures are properly numbered. Problem in Zed is structures just mushroom anyhow any where. The fear is after numbering 1,3,5,7…., someone works up and allocates a plot btn 3 and 5 and has no number for it.
If the government cannot or will not do this for citizens, citizens may have to do it for themselves. If you live on a named street or road, use that. If the road has no name, pick the name of the oldest householder on that road and name the road after him/her. Or if it has a unique landmark (Abandoned Hilux Road, Three Boulders Lane) use that. Vote on it, and the majority should rule. Make a road sign and post it at the corner of a main road, just like the city has on the more built up roads. Pick the house closest to the intersection that is nearest the city centre and call that house’s address no. 1. One Scary Pothole Road. The nearest house on the opposite side of the road would be Two Scary Pothole Road and so forth. Odd numbers on one side, even numbers on the other. If there is…
… Vacant land on the road, skip a sufficient amount of numbers to allow the address system to admit new houses later. Most cities allow 100 numbers between each intersection , but use whatever works for you. The point is to make it possible for a visitor, a postal carrier or a customer to find you easily. If citizens do this well enough, by the time the city gets around to giving numbers out, it may decide just to follow residents’ preliminary work. In the meantime, your guests or customers will not get so lost. You will have to use less talk time giving directions. And you may even get regular mail service! Good luck!
This is actually not a very difficult thing to achieve in Zambia. Take Lusaka for instance, you can number each house any how you like and use geographical location followed by a area codes, i.e a house in Lusaka West would have the following address:
195 Lumumba road, Lusaka West, LW20 9745, ZAMBIA – so 195 being the house number, name of road house is on or nearest to, the area, LW being geographical position(Lusaka west), number 20 the area code(allocate area codes, may already exist for voting purposes) and the last part being the last four digits of your plot number which would also be a unique identifier. We just need serious administrators to plan this lovely country of ours.