Friday, March 29, 2024

Lusaka City to be zoned into municipalities next year

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Vincent Mwale Sports Minister at Nkana Golf Club
Vincent Mwale
GOVERNMENT will soon issue a statutory instrument to outline the zoning of Lusaka city into municipalities by January 1 next year, Minister of Local Government Vincent Mwale has said.

Mr Mwale said in an interview that the move is aimed at improving service delivery to residents of the capital city.

He said Lusaka has grown tremendously and has become too big to be centrally managed by the council.

“We want anything to do with Matero to be done right in Matero, that to do with Chilenje to be done right in Chilenje. This is way, we will take services and development closer to the residents,” Mr Mwale said.

The minister said the zoning of the capital city is part of the decentralisation programme Government is implementing.

He said the Lusaka City Council is usually overwhelmed with service provision to people in various parts of the city because it is centrally located.

Some of the services the local authority offers include dog vaccination, solid waste management and city planning.

23 COMMENTS

  1. This is good news. I like the direction GRZ is taking regarding Lusaka. If we can make Lusaka a good environment to live & raise family with world class infrastructure & service delivery then we can have an example for doing the same for other cities in the country. Continue focusing on this kind of development GRZ which improves living standards of people & we shall continue appreciating your efforts. Let’s have smart cities in this country & Lusaka will be a good pilot for this. God Bless Zambia!

    • It is also a platform for other players like ZRA and NAPSA to benefit from. With a more focused municipal management where the city planning department moves into the areas, there will be better system of mapping and information about the numerous tuntembas. That way ZRA/NAPSA can work through these municipals to collect their dues.

    • Imagine to them every problem involves increasing expenditure even when they dont have funds….anyway money from talktime will pay for this then again they will say funds are not sufficient!!

    • Travel or simply study how mega cities are managed at sub-sector level. Do not just bring politics in every thing. There are sub-centers managing localized issues in each sub-urban in some cities I have visited and the communities have easy access to solutions and service related problems regarding that particular settlement. Let us just tell these guys to employ professionals to manage these centers so that we gain the benefits in full.

  2. This is a commendable initiatve by Local government. What needs to be seen is whether there will be equitable allocation of resources from central governement.

    Some areas are already impoverished and attract a certain class of people. These citizens are the worst when it comes to compliance in paying for services and have a poor appreciation of hygiene. Beyond demarcating the municipalities more will need to be done to gentrify the more densly populated areas.This will require a concerted multidimensional approach. One of the interesting side effects will be enhanced electoral appreciation by the residences of the affected municipalities unlike what is currently obtaining where electorates give up objectivity when enticed with meretricious gratifications in the form of political…

  3. …continued. One of the interesting side effects will be enhanced electoral appreciation by the residents of the affected municipalities unlike what is currently obtaining where electorates give up objectivity when enticed with meretricious gratifications in the form of political attire and alcohol.

  4. The issue of zoning Lusaka is off course overdue, the city was supposed to be zoned immediately it was declared a province, it is the only province were we have one Mayor and council. I am sure the old folks missed the point the time they declared it as the province back then. The council is failing to manage the city / Lusaka province because it’s too big to be managed by a single council, no wonder why we are hearing the mayor coming up with ideas which are not practical.
    We need zoned councils to strategize the way forward to keep the authorities in those zoned areas will effectively offer dog vaccination, solid waste management and city planning. Unlike the way it is now, thumbs up Honorable Mwale for the good idea.

  5. We already have MPs for all these parts of Lusaka city. What have they done to improve the lives of their constituents? Where has the money for the CDF gone?

    The fact is they have FAILED to do what they promised when campaigning for election.

    Now this Minister is proposing adding another whole layer to the administration of these constituencies. What will change? There will be political appointments by PF to reward their friends and relatives and an additional burden on the taxpayers. Will it change anything?

    The FACT is that this PF Government has been hijacked by a selfish group of dishonest, corrupt and incompetent thieves, and they are only interested in bettering their own lives at the expense of the rest of us. So it will only be more of the same.

    Idiocy is trying the…

  6. Lusaka is not a big city; though shanties have increased population; municipalities are welcome; if it is hard to manage Lusaka, how do you expect to manage the whole country from Lusaka? Remove street vendors to help manage the dirty city

    • Give me the job descriptions for mayors and district commissioners before we hard more excess baggage to the treasury?

  7. We used to have council sub offices (mostly a council house turned into an office) in the suburbs. Anyway, this move would also make local government elections meaningful because people would be elected for service delivery in their municipalities. What needs argent decentralization though is the fire-brigade, they need to be all over the city, near to the fires so to speak.

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