Kabwe Mayor Prince Chileshe has said President Edgar Lungu wants decentralisation to be fully actualised and implemented because it will help government provide projects that will be appreciated to people.
Mr. Chileshe said decentralisation means giving power to the people to drive the implementation of projects and the government agenda.
ZANIS in Kabwe reports that Mr. Chileshe said this when he officially handed over 36 bicycles to Ward Development Committees (WDCs) in 27 wards of Kabwe Central and Bwacha constituencies yesterday.
He said the WDCs are not political entities but agents of development adding that whatever they would be doing should be in line with the seventh National Development Plan (7NDP) and the Patriotic Front (PF) manifesto.
He has since called for team work and discipline at various levels of the governance structures in order to command respect among the member of the public.
Mr. Chileshe further advised the WDCs to engage the local authority on best practices to improve service delivery in the municipality.
He also encouraged the structures to identify fundable projects in the area of water and sanitation, security, health and education sectors for possible funding from the Constituency Development Funds (CDF).
And Mr. Chileshe has said there was need to orient all the Ward Development Committees (WDCs) to harmonise the working relationship with councillors.
He observed that the working relationship between WDCs and councillors was in some instances strained thus retrogressive to development.
He explained that WDCs are there to help implement government projects and programmes saying it would be folly for these structures and the councillors to be at loggerheads.
Mr. Chileshe was however optimistic that orientations will address the friction between the two parties thereby creating a conducive environment for development.
Speaking earlier, Kabwe Town Clerk (TC), Ronald Daka, said the embedding of the decentralisation policy in the national constitution has paved way for the actualization of decentralisation.
Mr. Daka said devolved governance presents the country with a unique opportunity to foster people driven sustainable development.
He said although the council was expected to do a lot, it cannot achieve much without engaging the people of Kabwe.
“I believe that once we and the people of Kabwe start moving together, we will achieve a lot in terms of development,” he said.
Mr. Daka said Ward Development Committees are the best tools of development and improving living standards of people.
“If we empower the WDCs, we will be making a lot of strides in stirring development and improving the living standards of the people,” he observed.
Meanwhile, Chalilalila Ward Development Committee (WDC) chairperson, Leonard Tembo, said the donation of bicycles will help his governance structure to address the problems of land audit and illegal land allocations.
Mr. Tembo has since pledged partnership with the local authority in implementing the developmental projects in the municipality.
In simple Zambian English this is under control by president Lungu
Thanks
BB2014,2016
I met Chileshe at Elephant’s head hotel with his campaign Manager. I thought he was going to be a breath of fresh air. Now he is talking about Social Studies of decentralization no fresh ideas. Kabwe is an re-emerging city which was a sleeping giant. It needs leaders who can take it to another level. Mushanga, Tutwa Prince and all those need to be towing the same line to boost the sleeping giant. Forget Jonathan. Work together in a decentralized way with local businesses men and women like Kasengo,millers the Asian business men around ‘nimutree’, source lodge proprietor and farmers to develop Kabwe.
ECL WORKING HARD…BRAVO
Decentralization while positive in itself ,its got its own drawbacks.Higher costs of more oversight thru provincial parliaments , decentralized graft and a wider net for waste and abuse.
Yes that is long overdue you can’t put all the eggs in one basket. Let each province have their own budget and run their own projects that’s how it is done in other countries good example is South Africa
If you steal a lot from one place then it is noticed but if you sreal a little from a lot of smaller places then the losses are harder to detect. The amount is still the same. Who benefits from decentralization.
It begins with the financial base, you can’t centralize revenue collection and hope to fully implement decentralization. As long as all revenue goes to the central treasury, it will be difficult to implement this policy. It will also work against parasite regions like Western Province whose consistently low GDP has made them reliant on resources from other provinces for projects. We need to go back to the system were local authorities collect all the revenue and only remit a % to the central govt. This way regions will determine how they wish develop. The worst effect of centralization was seen in the recruitment of teachers in which even technocrats have disowned the list of recruits. The other are roads that RDA builds and doesn’t handover to councils for maintenance. We need to…
Decentralization created Governors and later District Commissioners. It is not a new thing. It was, like all things Zambian run, abused from the get go. Mayors and their councilors were relegated to the dustbin of administration and the whole concept became a political tool for nonsense.
How can you talk about valued projects when you constructing roads for $1.2 billion!!