Friday, March 29, 2024

Why cities never get transformed in Africa

Share

Kitwe District Commissioner, Chanda Kabwe (in hat) and Kitwe Mayor Christopher Kang’ombe during a tour of Chisokone Market to checked on the status of garbage.

By Christopher Pikiti-Kang’ombe

There are so many leaders both in the ruling party and the opposition who yield a lot of influence on the people they lead in Zambia.

In certain rare cases, such influence is applied correctly to implore the people to change their mindset on matters affecting society.

However, most of us politicians appear to be scared of engaging the people we lead and influence them to think in a different way which will ultimately change society.

I arrived in South Africa this afternoon 21.03.17 for a series of meetings and compared to Kitwe, the city of Johannesburg is clean.
Instead of misusing our influence as leaders in Kitwe by failing to bring about positive change, we must get all residents to be involved in the transformational agenda for the great city of Kitwe.

Everyone worthy to be called a leader must positively influence the people. We must not be pre-occupied with elections when its time to work and achieve positive change.

I am grateful for the support from both the Minister of local government, Hon. Vincent Mwale and His Excellency , President Edgar Lungu for the agenda for a better and cleaner Kitwe.

This is what I call the correct usage of our political influence on the people we lead at the highest level. Kitwe can become then next Kigali or the next Johannesburg if only we engage the residents and make them understand what we want to achieve in terms of cleanliness and better city outlook.

Bus stations should be well arranged and managed with no illegal bus operators. Trading by our marketeers should be in designated markets such as Chisokone and Nakadoli to accommodate both those who do street vending and those already inside the market.

I pledge to provide leadership that will listen to all stakeholders especially the informal sector and also Bar/ Tarven and Bottle store owners on better trading conditions.

I hope to learn more whilst in South Africa on how cities in the global village are being transformed.
If the foregoing observations are not in order, i welcome your constructive criticism on the paragraphs concerned or the entire wording above.

The Author is the Mayor of the City of Kitwe on the Copperbelt Province of Zambia Mayor

21 COMMENTS

  1. You allowed uncontrolled street vending and lack of accountability by both residents and city leaders yet you wonder why our cities are a total mess?

    • @enka don’t accuse the young man who wasn’t even born in the late 70s when your relatives started encroaching on Oxford, Matuka and Chisokone roads. He’s trying to clean the mess your grand father created and all you do is disparage him. No wonder we shall not develop because everything is either PF or Upnd no matter how good it may be.

    • Is this your first visit outside the country, baba. When those of us who are outside the try complain about the filth in Zambia, you call us all sorts of names. Lusaka for example has no dumping sites or land fills or refuse trucks. How do you expect to keep a city clean that way? Trading is done everywhere, no control or regulations. Give us in the diaspora a chance to run one city, you’ll see the difference.

    • Ba wiseone we all know the cause of differences between “your ” cities and ours. Citizens “there ” are disciplined while here we throw dirt anyhow. Government fails to action the laws which punishes culprits.

    • The issue in Zambia is lack of leadership because politicians use street vending as citizen Empowerment. I concur with Kang’ombe, that we need citizen awareness in many aspects because we the Zambians are the only people who can make our cities better.
      It’s shameful to see that the same leaders travel outside the country, admire other country’s success yet do not put any strategic measure or objectives to improve our well-being. This is non-partisan but let us change as a country.
      How do we start: let’s have law & order, therefore CADRES should not control bus stations and markets? Street vendors should be removed.
      Good Point Raised.

    • @The Prince good points. We talk about citizens not Upnd or PF cadres. When we throw garbage in drains we should punished regardless of our political preference. We all need a clean environment and therefore we should not celebrate ati Lungu nafilwa. Remember Lungu or even HH live in ultra clean areas. It incumbent on us to assist councils to preserve our environment.

  2. Because we have backward and thuggish government and parties like the pf who steal elections and fatten themselves while the people suffer

    • Wena just offer solutions. The dirty has always been there long before your “election was stolen “. Would love to live in faeces because the vote was “stolen ” or clean your surrounding while you mourn your dead petition? This about health not useless politics.

    • NED you are so boring, you are also fighting pf shadows, you should probably be taken to the psychiatric and have brain check up, i think you are running mad. Ka’ngombe deserves everyone’s support. He’s reasoning better than many other ministers, he’s also better than your HH.

  3. Next time you are in Johannesburg ask your handlers to take you to the Johannesburg CBD, Hillbrow, Yeovile then you may reconsider your perception of the cleanliness of Johannesburg. Don’t be fooled by what you see in Sandton. I would have agreed with you if you said Singapore is clean…yes Singapore is very clean

  4. mr mayor, you are doing a good job and thanks for your article but the mention of Vincent and Edgar is just meant to please them when they have done nothing in terms of cleanness. Is their back yard in Lusaka clean? You also have a useless Lusaka minister who thinks that it is ok to trade on streets for the sake of PF votes. Shame.

  5. We have to learn to respect the law, both as leaders and citizens. So if you are ready to put your head on the chopping block, then a good number of Kitwe residents will support you. we definitely need to clean up our city! however, this will need resolute leadership from yourself Mr. Mayor.

  6. This is the type of leadership that we must encourage in our country and not the cadre type of lawlessness. The young man had to sacrifice a lot of political capital in order to ensure that the right thing was done in the removal of street vendors from the streets of Kitwe. This is in stark contrast to his Lusaka colleagues who because of political cowardice choose to turn a blind eye to this vice. Leadership is not always about telling people what is pleasing to their ears, but also being able to dispense the bitter medicine that will ultimately benefit the people. i pray that this young man will continue leading in wisdom and courage and will one day ascend to the highest office of this land. Zambia surely needs such leadership if we are to defeat the pervasive hands of poverty that so…

  7. I saw a young girl coming from school and she was eating Corn Puffs. When this girl finished eating, she threw the empty packet in an undesignated area. I quickly stopped her and practically educated her by picking that trash and walked with her in the same direction in town. We later found one waste bin and I threw the empty packet in the Waste Bin for CopWaste. This is what honourable Kang’ombe is talking about. Any sane person can and will not criticize him on this. We need a change of mindset even in the way we are using social media. H.W. the Mayor is in a right direction and I encourage him to continue benchmarking. “Bane Umwana Ashenda Atasha Nina Ukunaya Ubwali”

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading