Friday, March 29, 2024

Home Affairs Minister admits the law allows police stations to operate parking lots

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President Edgar Lungu with Home affairs minister Davies Mwila, Finance minister Alexander Chikwanda (l) and State House deputy President Mulenga Sata   shortly before  he left  for a working holiday in Mfuwe on January 4,2015 -Picture by THOMAS NSAMA
President Edgar Lungu with Home affairs minister Davies Mwila, Finance minister Alexander Chikwanda (l) and State House deputy President Mulenga Sata shortly before he left for a working holiday in Mfuwe on January 4,2015 -Picture by THOMAS NSAMA

Home Affairs Minister Davies Mwila has admitted that the law allows the Zambia Police Service to run parking lots at police stations.

Last week, MMD National Youth Secretary Bowman Lusambo challenged Mr Mwila to acquaint himself with the law before announcing policy decisions that are outside the law.

Appearing on ZNBC’s Sunday Interview last evening, Mr Mwila said he announced the ban on private vehicles parking at police stations because he wanted to bring sanity to police stations.

He admitted that the Zambia Police Amendment Act of 1999 empowers the Police Inspector General to prescribe the amounts to be paid as parking fees by those leaving the vehicles at the police station for safe keeping.

Mr Mwila said the ban is only temporal and meant to bring sanity and accountability in the running of parking lots by the police.

He said the fees collected by the police from parking fees are never remitted to the state as prescribed by law.

‘Where does that money go? The Police Command should tell us because their offices are not motivated, they lack stationery and they don’t even have fuel and yet that law was made with good intentions of helping the police stations run efficiently,’ Mr Mwila explained.

Although he failed to state when the ban will be lifted, Mr Mwila said some members of the public have started compiling with his directive by not parking at police stations.

‘I have received a lot of messages from members of the public supporting this move. What we want is accountability. The Police Command should ensure sanity is restored. Even if the law is there, we need to check on how these people are working.’

Mr Mwila said it is not the responsibility of the state to ensure a private vehicle is protected.

‘When you buy your car from wherever, do you expect the police to look after the vehicle for you? I don’t think it is the responsibility of the police to protect your car.’

35 COMMENTS

  1. PURE FAILURES.
    MR. MINISTER, WHY RASH TO THE MEDIA BEFORE REHEASING WITH THE POLICE COMMAND ON HOW THE MONEY COLLECTED AT POLICE STATIONS ARE USED.

    WE KNOW THE CHALLENGES MOST POLICE OFFICERS ARE GOING THROUGH, ENDLESS TO MENTION THEM. THESE ARE THE ISSUES THAT U MUST FOCUS ON. NOT MERE SPECULATION AND SUSPECIONS.

    DO A GOOD JOB MR. MINISTER. PEOPLE LEAVING THEIR CARS AT POLICE STATION IS ALSO PART OF COMMUNITY POLICING. POLICE ARE MANDETED TO PROTECT PROPERTY AND COLLECT REVENUE AS QUATED ABOVE.

    I GUESS, YOUR ACT MIGHT BE OUT OF HATE FOR SOMEONE IN THE POLICE FORCE.

    • Mulongoti said, Edgar Lungu is surronded by stuupit people like Davies Mwila, Chishimba Kambwili and Hary Kalaba.

      Edgar Lungu himself is a mess. He has failed to restore the kwacha that is everyday losing value.

      We too need sanity in government; Lungu and his felow F00ls must stepdown or resign. They are politically impotent.

    • @ baami, Am sure yu are a beneficiary of the parking levies that yu collect every night at your Police Stations. Well everything has an end and this is the end of yo eating public money with impunity. We need accountability and sanity in those stations. Look you can’t even surroundings or let alone clean the floors, toilets or replace curtains at those stations. All the money ends up in yo pockets, you just share it. No this abuse cannot be allowed to continue.

    • MOST ZAMBIAN MINISTERS ARE DUNDERHEADS. IMWE MWE BANTU, LET THE COUNCIL BUILD AND RUN PARKING LOTS. THAT IS A CHANCE AND 1 OF THE RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE COUNCILS TO RUN PARKING LOTS AND MAKE REVENUE FOR THE LOCAL COUNCILS AND MAKE IT ILLEGAL FOR PEOPLE TO PARK ANYWHERE DOWN TOWNS THE DRIVING PUBLIC SEE FIT. AND IN A WAY PROMOTING COMMUTING WITH PUBLIC TRANSPORT IF ONE CANNOT AFFORD PARKING CHARGES. ZAMBIA MISINTERPRETS EVERYTHING. THERE USED TO BE MAIZE MEAL SMUGGLING FROM ZAMBIA TO CONGO. INSTEAD OF AUTHORITIES SEEING THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR BUSINESS AND INCREASED FARMING TO SUPPLY NEIGHBOURS WITH THE COMMODITY GRZ SPENT A LOT OF MONEY TRYING TO CURB SMUGGLING. FOR ME IT WAS IDIOCY ON THE PARTY OF POWERS THAT BE. INCREASED FARMING THROUGH POLICIES ADJUSTMENTS WAS THE ANSWER.

    • Let’s be serious imwe mwe fipuba mwe! What the Minister is saying is that can the Police account for the money they have been pocketing even if the law provides for them to allow parking of cars?

      How can one park his/her can for years at the police station and you think it’s normal? Where then do you park your car when you want to report a case to these policemen? It’s sad indeed that people can get so low to oppose even what is good for the community. the police premises in our country are sorry sight and we need to support the minister in changing this.
      If you can’t get a police report at almost every station, excuse being they have no stationery, where then do they take the money collected from those motorists?
      Let’s change our way of living please!

    • ‘When you buy your car from wherever, do you expect the police to look after the vehicle for you? I don’t think it is the responsibility of the police to protect your car.’

      And a statement is attributed to a minister in-charge of homeland security. At the month end he even gets paid. PF please give us better leaders.

  2. Generally police are expected to protect public property. I fear the minister’s reason for the ban is an afterthought. I think you can clear this mess up.internally without inconveniencing the public.

    • to protect public property your car is not a public property but your personal property if your car is is a public property then even your tv,stove,etc take them to the police station for safe keeping.wechipuba iwee.

  3. Just remove those skolokolos from police stations. Moreover its the cops themselves who park those vehicles there and defile the law of payments towards the same. Why congesting the station when you fail to pay the money to self support yo petty requirements.

  4. Maybe the Minister or a relative has a parking lot and people are not parking there, instead they prefer parking at the police station.

  5. When I was on holiday last year in Zambia, the only way I would tell I was passing by a ZP Station, was by the unsightly parked accident damaged cars and cars squeezed onside at night. The law needs to be reviewed a police station is supposed to open and transparent for all to enter…a Garage is much more tidy than ZP stations…let the Police at Stations focus on maintaining law & order: protect members of the public & their property; & prevent, detect & investigate crime.

    The City Councils & the business community are sleeping in fact they should be lobbying the minister to repeal this law in Parliament. The Council has land which it can easily use as secure Car Parks & Impound yards for damaged cars; this is how Councils create additional revenue in the US & Europe.

    Wake up!!

    • Trust me, @Jay Jay, there have been private initiatives and overtures to the effect of putting up well administered parking facilities to take the revenue collection load and inconvenience off the police hands but that has been spurned. Now reading into what Mwila has said, like most laws in Zambia, the good intentions have been twisted for pecuniary gain. Like all laws in African countries there is either a distortion to punish political opponents, or for enforcers to gain illegal advantage in monetary terms. That is the shame we bear as a continent generally, save for very, very few nations.

    • Just imagine if the Councils had build secure Impound Yards and the charged a fee for every vehicle impounded per day that had been stopped by police at ZP traffic check points, all those damaged in accidents and also build strategically automated located secure car parks with CCTVs around the city for night parking how much they revenue they would collect instead of losing all this revenue to corrupt Police officers at stations.
      The council can even make more money as well from all those uncollected cars in their yards after ZP carries out their investigations by selling them to scrap metal dealers and auctions.

    • @Kalok
      The main problem in Zambia is that even these selfsame Ministers, MPs do not know what their role is; they utterly have no clue whatsoever..its not even laughable…for instance the Mayor of Lusaka is in State House doing other roles as a minister of State House when the whole capital city looks like sh%t hole…if the minister sat down and consulted his civil servants for direction on the law he would have not been exposed like this.
      He should go to Parliament and repeal this law; mandate councils; they should be in charge of securing impounded vehicles, accident mangled vehicles…challenge them and the business community to take up the mantle of night parking. This is how NCP car parks were created in England.

    • Your suggestions are very good. Unfortunately in Zambia it cannot work. If the council started operating parking lots all vehicles would lose all their vital parts in one week. Eventually, the car parks would be taken over by party cadres. We need to work on the entire governance and attitude system. Cadres have taken over the streets and bus stations from the councils. Very soon, they’ll take over the collection of rates, licence fees etc.

    • Wise One. I totally agree with you. Really Bro Wise One. Councils are sleeping. Like in Kitwe Council just collect those 2 kwachas at Shoprite part of it even being pocketed by the gate-takers.

  6. Mr Mwila.There is no shame in admitting that you did not know of such a law.
    That will earn you more respect than you trying to cover your mistake with another lie.
    Your instruction or command never stated ‘Temporal Ban’.
    It is true that there needs to be transparency and accountability in the revenue collection not only at Police car parks but also Bus stops,borders etc as a lot of revenue is lost which can be used by the councils to improve service delivery.

  7. The police falls under his ministry, so instead of him devising a way of the police force to account for the parking loot collected, he chooses to break the law. How ironic? He probably also voted for the same law.

    • And this ministry and others have at least two useless deputy ministers as well all getting a salary, free mobile phone, accommodation, car for doing nothing….really laughable….merely being an empty suit!!

  8. Such behavior is only expected among cadres who can issue statements without first understanding existing policies or laws. Mr speaker, is the minister a cadre? Plz advise.

  9. …gentlemen hold your fire…..the situation in Zed is not like what you experience in most developed countries…street lights everywhere, people park their cars overnight on the streets without fear of a break-in to remove radios and batteries which is the order of the day in Zed….those people who do that are just forced by circumstance….imagine parking your car at the police station ofcourse for security reason and the walk about 500 Mtrs to your home….most low and medium cost houses were built without car parking facilities….during Kaunda days there was no such nuisance of cars flooding police posts because the majority couldn’t afford cars…it was only after 1991 that people were empowered and hence the 1999 enacting of this law after numerous theft complaints….

    • …what beats me is that this situation is backed by law but the minister can one day just wake up and announce the ban while the REAL nuisance of street vending which is not backed by the law is given a blind eye….there is always an excuse to first find an alternative before removing the street vendors which I expected Mwila to consider before announcing this ban……alternatively.. councils can come in as already alluded……
      …Mwila has a hidden agenda…most of his ‘headlines’ are somehow of a controversial nature…. he wants to come on a limelight thru the ‘back door’….

  10. If there is demand for people to park their cars at the police station then why can’t the government just build a purpose built police station with a managed parking facility? Why can’t people think outside the box in Zambia? If people want to park their cars at a police station then let them do it but make sure the environment is conducive to do so rather than reducing the police stations to mini scrap yards. The old saying goes, “You can take a man out of a village but you cannot take the village out of him”. This village mentality is ruining the image of our country.

    • The thrust of the metaphor aside, there is nothing wrong with the village setting. In the village there is no vehicle theft. You can park anywhere you want, you can leave your clothes on the drying over night if you want, etc. Security in the village is not an issue. So, do not vilify the villager. Villagers are good people.

    • You’ve just said it my friend…”park anywhere you want” exactly that! cities are defined by the number of people that occupy them and for that matter you need Law and order. If you are in a village, think like a villager and if in a city think like someone in a city. Nothing sinister about that. We just need to apply logic otherwise we end up with giant shanti towns.

  11. So even Bowman Lusambo is better informed on the Law than the Minister of Home Affairs! If he can not understand such simple law, how then can he understand complex law? Mr Edgar Lungu, where did you get this man from? Bus station?

    • @Brickforce Wire, he might just be a beneficiary whose stolen bread has been yanked from under his greedy mouth. In Zambia crooks know the law like nobody you know.

  12. This minister is really insane!!!! he says the law permits for the general public to park their vehicles for safety at police stations at certain fees,but again he says it not police’s prerogative to safeguard their vehicles!!!!! now my question to the dull mwila is that if he is saying it is not the police’s mandate to protect the people’s vehilces,do these people just take heir vehivles for safety at police station for free or they have to pay?
    And he has even stated himself that the money the police collects from these parkings is used by the police to buy stationery.

    Truly we have ignorant ministers in zambia!!!!!! ministers who fail to elaborate the law!!!!
    All these blame goes to the landlord lungu who is just picking people as ministers without considering is they can…

    • That is Zambia for you. Even clowns are appointed to ministerial positions. Clearly Lungu’s cabinet is full of dunderheads.
      With the banning of parking of cars at police stations for safety the police and insurance companies will be inundated with reports of stolen cars at worst and claims respectively. I foresee some of the Mickey mouse insurance companies folding up as a result.

  13. @muzimo, I think the context might be lost in translation, especially the manner in which these LT reports are crafted. That said, I believe it would be best for police to guard public infrastructure including streets instead of becoming car guards at the police stations. Yes, it is a privacy matter that your car must be free within your premises, while the police, both city and state (do we even have a functional city security apparatus anymore?) look after the environs just outside your yard. By extension they are protecting private property. As it is, while the car guards look after your car, thieves now target those brave enough to keep their cars within their yards…

  14. It’s actually a defective law. It’s not the responsibility of the police to look after your .com vehicles. Imagine if everyone took there cars there, what on earth will be of these police posts? Someone blundered when they passed this law. What is the difference between a car and any other property, do you keep it the police station?

    PF is indeed a party of think tanks and we will continue voting for them to bring sanity in ZAMBIA. Too bad the Under Five has lost it again!

  15. Why punish the general public for the failure of the police to account for the money they collect from packing?

  16. It should not end by saying were does the money go, but wrong doers must face the law for not accounting for public funds.

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