Government will compensate those whose property was burnt after investigating the cause of the fire at Chifundo Market in Mandevu Township, Deputy Minister in the office of the Vice President Harry Kalaba has said.
Mr Kalaba said methods of protecting markets should be revised and caretakers must be responsible in order to avoid recurrences of such situations.
He described the scenario as sad and that Government would critically examine the situation to get a clear picture on how the fire exactly started.
“It is very unfortunate to have such a fiasco. It took a passenger from a bus to call emergency responders while caretakers were not around to make an emergency call. There should be a caretaker with the fire brigade number,” he said.
He said markets should engage serious caretakers with a sober mind who would have a contact list consisting of numbers of the Fire Brigade, the Lusaka City Council, Area Member of Parliament (MP) and police among others.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Community Development Mother and Child Health who is Mandevu Constituency Member of Parliament Jean Kapata appealed to the Committee of Chifundo Market to verify the list of the genuine victims who would be assisted.
“People affected should benefit to lessen costs. We do not want a situation where people who were renting shops sometime back to receive funds when they are no longer operating from the market,” she said.
She said only those that were genuinely affected by the inferno would be compensated so that they were adequately provided for.
That’s great idea.
The problem with ba fire brigade they go to the fire site without water and then by the time they organize for the water kinship ifintu fyonse they are burnt to ashes.
How do yu tell from the market who is a genuine victim. The money will end up in wrong hands
Yeah its a brilliant idea to help on such a disaster
The problem of fire starts with planning, layout of market facilities. There are no fire fighting equipment in ANY market in Zambia. Politicians don’t like taking responsibility and the masses just grumble, but are pacified by promises by politicians… end of story
Sadly people lose out and despite this, no lessons will be learnt and nothing will be done to correct and prevent future fires.
As Zambians, we love rhetoric a lot…well…words without action are hollow!!
We need to radically change our attitudes, be responsive and responsible and demand better than we current get.
PRECEDENCE HAS BEEN SET.
DON’T ARGUE NEXT TIME .
Mwayamba bupompwe !
Government will compensate those whose property was burnt after investigating the cause of the fire at Chifundo Market in Mandevu Township, Deputy Minister in the office of the Vice President Harry Kalaba has said.
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Community Development Mother and Child Health who is Mandevu Constituency Member of Parliament Jean Kapata appealed to the Committee of Chifundo Market to verify the list of the genuine victims who would be assisted.
The idea is good provided the exercise is not politicised with preference being given to PF sympathisers.
There is need for our people to take out insurance for their trade stock. This will likely get out of hand looking at the history of fires from nakadoli & chisokone markets in kitwe to buseko in lsk. Ministry of Local Govt. Should work with insurers to design appropriate cover. Be proactive, provide leadership to the less knowing! Insurers also slumbering.
how do u compensate with out investigations? wooden structure, no fire prevention/ alerm /warning system then govt takes responsibility?? what needs to be done is make policies on what should be now market structure with fire control measure country wide. thats what we call pregressive thinking