The Minister of Planning Honorable Lucky Mulusa has proposed relocating the capital city because the Greater City of Lusaka has become unsustainable. The Minister has argued that it is extremely expensive for government to undertake a massive urban renewal programme to turn Lusaka into a smart, sustainable, green city. He projects the situation to be worse in ten years’ time.
As an alternative to Lusaka, the Minister has proposed relocating the capital city to Ngabwe in Central Province.
At the moment, Lusaka host the “Big 6” developmental nodes, namely, the executive, legislature, judiciary, commerce, tourism and manufacturing.
While we support the need to rethink the spatial issues of the Greater City of Lusaka from the lens of sustainability, our point of departure with Minister’s proposal is adopting the one-size-fits-all approach to address the Lusaka sustainability problem. We implore government to rethink this sort of spatial planning intervention. It it will be the approach for Ngabwe, whereby the “New” capital city is made to host the “Big 6”developmental nodes in a one-size-fits-all strategy, then Ngabwe will too become unsustainable like Lusaka.
Our view is that instead of adopting the one-size-fits-all strategy, there is need to decentralize central government by relocating the executive, legislature, and judiciary to different locations. This is good for the country, not only for spatial reasons, but also as a means for equitable distribution national resources and promoting national unity.
Our view is that Lusaka remains the commercial and manufacturing capital of Zambia. Ngabwe could host the judicial capital. With the proposed construction of the new airport on the Copperbelt, the executive capital could be moved an area bordering Copperbelt and Kapiri Mposhi. The legislature could be moved to Mongu in Western Province, while the tourism capital could remain in Southern Province in Livingstone. In this regard, there will be need to construct state-of-art conferencing facilities in Livingstone similar to the ones in Cape Town, Durban and Sandton, as well as upgrade other social amenities so that Zambia starts attracting high profile international conferences on regular basis.
Peter Sinkamba
President
Green Party of Zambia
Lol what kind of thinking is this Mr. Green Party President? You are proposing that Lusaka remains the Capital for manufacturing and Commerce, but move the Executive to the Copperbelt? What does the word Capital mean to you?
cap·i·tal1
?kap?dl/Submit
noun
1.
the most important city or town of a country or region, usually its seat of government and administrative center.
This is the basic definition of the word Capital. Even if we go by this grade Five Social Studies definition, your suggestion still lacks merit. You can not break up the “seat of government and administrative center.”
YES, this Green Party guy always makes progressive contributions in most topics of national interest.
Zambians must understand that Zambia is not Lusaka. It’s this centralisation mentality that has mad this country stagnate for over 5 decades of self rule. It’s true that most countries have capital cities that are separate from commercial hubs; e.g. Washington Vs, New York, Texas, Chicago; Abuja Vs Lagos, Pretoria Vs JHB, Durban, CPT; Abu Dhabi Vs Dubai, Beinjin Vs Shanghai, Guangzhou and the list goes on. And most of these are countries that are even running out of space. What about us with so much undeveloped land?
Before you talk first thing think we have failed to maintain current infrastructures do you mean you achieve that
this chap has been smoking something;No need to shift the capital city;GRZ should give autonomy to provinces to rule themselves;Lusaka can still have enough land if we do a fresh planning for it; cities around the world are being transformed step by step and not running to build new capital cities which we end up like Lusaka;problem is that we have visionsless leaders
Mule ikalfye nga tamishibe decentralization. Whether or not you make provinces autonomous, there is still a federal arrangement. For example, all provinces in South Africa are autonomous with their own parliaments and Premiers or Prime Ministers. However, there is still federal administration distributed as follows:
“Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the President and Cabinet, is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein, as the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal, is the judicial capital, while the Constitutional Court of South Africa sits in Johannesburg.”
I support Peter sinkamba’s idea. Decentralization will be the best approach. Lusaka is too congested leading to dirtiness and traffic congestion.
I also support him. We need to share the wealth of the nation equitably, or at least in that regard. Take for instance, in South Africa, Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the President and Cabinet, is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein, as the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal, is the judicial capital, while the Constitutional Court of South Africa sits in Johannesburg. Durban is the tourism capital and for that reason hosts high profile conferences every other month.
Only people who are smoking something will support this crazy idea.
So you mean South African smoke something for making Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, their legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the President and Cabinet, their administrative capital; and Bloemfontein, as the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal, their judicial capital, while the Constitutional Court of South Africa sits in Johannesburg? Umwana ushenda?????????