Council Workers in Kasempa not paid for 2 Months-Kabinga Pande

Opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy MMD Kasempa constituency member of parliament Kabinga Pande says council workers in his constituency have not been paid their salaries for the past two months.

Mr Pande told journalists in lusaka that the council workers were last paid their salaries in December and have not been paid their dues for January and February.

“Am currently talking to the ministry of local government, January, February salaries have not been paid to council workers in Kasempa so you can imagine what is going on there”. Mr Pande said.

He further bemoaned the lack of developmental projects in his area.

He says developmental programs have stalled in Kasempa since the MMD lost elections in 2011and that nothing has been initiated apart from projects under the Constituency Development Fund CDF since the PF come into office.

He warns that the people of Kasempa will not hesitate to vote the PF out of office in 2016 if they continue to be segregative in the implementation of developmental programs.

And Mr. Pande who is also MMD National Chairperson has observed that government has rushed the implementation of the new education policy which requires teachers to instruct pupils in local languages from grade1to 4.

He said though government has gone ahead and introduced the new policy it seems not ready because of the lack of well trained teachers in local languages.

Mr Pande said government did not widely consult on the issue as can be seen from challenges the policy is encountering such as the lack of competent local language teachers.

He further noted that belonging to a particular tribe does not make a person a competent teacher in that tribe because one needs to be conversant with a tribe to be a good teacher.

“From the way it is, it clearly shows that the government is not ready, you need teachers that are very conversant with the local languages they teach, for example am a Kaonde but I don’t qualify to teach Kaonde so that is the dilemma which we are saying”. He said.

He advised government to discontinue the implementation of the new policy saying his party’s view is that anything that brings conflict or problems among the people should be discontinued.

” We understand the importance of a person understanding their language but it shouldn’t be imposed on them”. He said.

Government has introduced a new education policy which requires teachers to instruct pupils in lower primary in local languages dominant in the area but the policy has hit some set backs in some districts with pupils refusing to be instructed in the local language prescribed in the area because they feel their language is superior to the prescribed language of instruction.