President Lungu yesterday commissioned the Michel Chilufya Sata toll plaza situated on the Ndola-Kitwe dual carriageway in Luanshya district on the Copperbelt Province, which has been constructed at a cost 4.3 million United States dollars.
The President said the construction of toll plazas in the country is not meant to burden citizens, but it is one way of broadening the tax base to support the infrastructure development agenda in the country.
The President emphasized that once the tax base is broadened it will translate into lower taxes for the people which as earlier promised during the 2011 elections.
“We did not promise that there will be no taxes, but we promised to have lower taxes and that is the reason for broadening the tax base” the President stated.
The Head of State explained that toll plazas will continue being the beacon of hope in facilitating the road infrastructure development across the country.
President Lungu said the benefits to be derived from toll plazas will facilitate construction of new road infrastructure as well as maintenance of existing ones.
“It is part of government plan to ensure sustainable development. Road tolling is not to burden people but to help finance new road construction and raise domestic revenue for development” the President explained.
He said government has made positive strides since the construction of the tolling projects started, as it will move the country from being landlocked to an inter linked one through improved road network supported by tolling projects.
President Lungu added that government will plough back funds raised from road tolling project into infrastructure development, so that the road infrastructure does not have a bearing on the national treasury.
IMG_8005.jpg President Edgar Lungu being shown how the system works at the newly commissioned Michael Chilufya Sata Toll Plaza
And Copperbelt Minister Japhen Mwakalombe said he was happy that the 45.5 kilometer Kitwe-Ndola dial carriageway done by the Road Development Agency (RDA) is also complete.
He said the periodic maintenance of the 69 kilometers Ndola Mufulira road is also going on well, adding that the road projects on the Copperbelt once completed will spar economic development in the province and will improve the living lives of the people”
And Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Development Ronald Chitotela said the commissioning the Michel Chilufya Sata toll plaza is the 6th plaza in the country to be operational which will use both cash and epay toll card system.
Mr Chitotela said the double pay system at Michel Chilufya Sata is meant to minimize the handling of cash by the tolling officers.
He also said that government has engaged two contractors to work on the 900 kilometer stretch of the township roads on the Copperbelt which will be completed by 2021.
Not a bad initiative. I hope we use it well, and more importantly, I hope we account for, and utilize the revenue well.
The sleeping President
Upnd ni zzzzzzz ninselefye bakulatukana in the mean time ECL is enjoying himself.
Michael sata was preaching less taxes, but a toll plaza for people to pay more taxes has been name in his honour. That’s less money in your pockets.
Makes more sense than the WhatsApp Tax !!
That does not look like $4.3M. Another dununa regret. Meanwhile we are still sending patients to South Africa 54 years after independence. Where are your priorities PF?
Does it require an entire president to commission a toll plaza? Doesn’t his Excellency have rather more pressing matters to attend to? Couldn’t a DC or provincial minister have done this? One gets the impression that he doesn’t have priorities because he doesn’t know what he is doing.
It would be less burdening if motorists had to pay only once to destination other than the way it is where you pay at each toll gate. Fom Chingola to Livingstone you get broke.
So the road is constructed by RDA using taxpayers money and you are charging a toll fee when they pay road tax as well and this clown says its to broaden the tax base…imagine someone who stays in Kitwe but works in Ndola. Someone needs to take the govt to court you can not be erecting toll gates everywhere without giving the people an alternative its daylight robbery.How does a simple Toll Gate cost $4.3 million? This should not cost even a million dollars yet this lazy clown is showing his Ivory without shame not realizing he is killing small business by increasing the cost off doing business.
Yaba! It definitely will NEVER be a President! Well done Mr. Lungu! Let’s develop this thing! It is UNELECTABLE!
Now we are talking the TONGA President is ready to be installed as PARAMOUNT CHIEF OF THE NAMWALA PEOPLE!
HATRIBES HAJEALOUSY! HAZALUZA HAGAIN!
Like seriously? Lol….
$4million ??
The building on right is $100,000 max. We build houses with $20,000.
Then tuma pillars utu…. common people tell me why $4million, salaries or what?
Is that some little change to what HAKAINDE HICHILEMA has hidden in PANAMA?
HAKAINDE CHILDISH MUTINTA UNDER FIVE HICHILEMA TOLL PLAZA
4 million usd we have a government the has perfected the art of stealing. The fees should be reduced for these toll gates otherwise its expensive to use your own car especially when going to the copperbelt.
There he is in photo smiling like a kid oblivious to the waste …surely a barrier and pillars in the U|K this would not cost even £500K yet it would be self automated and maned by only a maintenance man with an off site customer service team.
Would I be wrong to say that we have a Commissioner General as President. It seems that’s the only thing this man does
Well, if he is commissioning, then he is working. He is a performer.
Project commissioning is the process of assuring that all systems and components of a building or industrial plant are designed, installed, tested, operated, and maintained according to the operational requirements of the owner or final client.
So what are you yapping about?
What else can he do? He has no vision, he is incompetent only knows how to dance
Incompetent TONGA PRESIDENT will NEVER be a PResident in Zambia. He is going into retirement in 2021. GBM will become UPND PRESIDENT, Kekekeke Is that true LARRY MWEETWA?
4.3 million USD or ZMW?
Aba bafikili they are thieves. In all fareness can that be a $4.3 million project. Do they know what this money can do. In case you dont know that translates to ZMW 51,200,000. I lost faith and trust in these thieves in PF a long time ago and I dont want to be part of the foolis.h followers of the foo.lish.
I dont think Michael himself could have liked this st.upid idea of squeezing the poor day and night. This is when HH makes sense to me. TRibalism aside thats PF propaganda of desperation to keep on cheating the people to vote for them. Its clear the last elections were rigged big time!!!!!
Disaster.
This toll plaza it’s every expensive $4,300,000 which k50,740,000 ,what so special about that this toll plaza, more money in Chinese pocket
Travelling to Lusaka will be more expensive now.
Wait till the overpriced Ndola – Lusaka carriageway is complete …you will be charged four times by the time you get to Lusaka from Kitwe
When we start to think $1m is to K1m then we have a problem
kikikikikikikikiki @ $1m is to K1m. kkkkakakaka
RDA contracts are always over a million dollars even a mere foot path would be valued at $1million dollars
Does Lungu understand what it means to broaden the TAX base???
I wonder too! If tolls are broadening the tax base then how many taxes does an employed person who earns a salary and has to get to work daily passing through these toll gates pay?
How can he understand when he doesn’t pay tax and his ministers are subsidized with everything..just look at how he is smiling in that overpriced booth like a fooooool.
…..constructed at a cost 4.3 million United States dollars.
My lord!!!!
Have ever constructed 1 toll gate in your lifetime?
4.3 million US$?????? If true then we have a huge problem in this country called Zambia!
Have you ever constructed 1 toll gate in your lifetime?
Another way of stealing, if Chilufya was alive I doubt if this garbage will exist he might have a better way of funding the government than stealing from the poor.
All along the Toll gate was named Mwanawasa . Why the change of name?
Because Mwana was the worst president ever!
A president travels all the way to cb just to open a toll gate. Kikiki kuti waseka. Tells you a lot about their priority
The provincial minister, PS, DC, Mayor or even area MP could have done the commissioning. The irony is, all these functions were present just to witness, at taxpayers expenses. Cry our beloved cry.
Was NECZAM privatised the same thief too? Just like NEDCOZ?
Bwana Lungu a road toll is not a tax it is simply a user fee.
Why should you pay a user fee on a road you built …its not like its an alternative shorter route built with private funding…this needs to be challenged in court.
He looks comfortable in that booth, maybe this is the job the n!gger was supposed to be doing in the first place, however there would have been shortages on the collections as well. Cant place this loser anywhere
“Toll is for broadening the tax base” Ok we need to sue GRZ and Lungu for double taxation since the fuel tax and RDA are also funded by taxpayers for the purpose of road building/maintenance.
Elyashi ilyo. If you have the balls, sue ubuteko tumone if you are man enough.
I like people who think like you.
Gather all your evidence and sue. I will be interested in the outcome.
Mzambia wa Zamani – On a serious point someone has to take a stance am surprised Haulage and Bus associations are mute…someone needs to challenge the govt on this daylight robbery.
Zambians wake up from your docility …this is not a toll road built with PPP funding these are built with loans you will repay through road tax and PAYE.
To be fair to all Zambians, toll should be managed by provinces not by federal government.
IMG_8005.jpg
Have you posted a folder?
Dullness is a misdemeanour.
Are these the 1.5 million jobs pa , you promised lungu ?
Lungu’s advisors need to be sacked. How can the whole of a President commission the opening of a structure that will be used to tax further its citizens. ECL should be opening schools, manufacturing plants or something that benefits its citizens.
scandal after scandal………….. Chimtofwa of leaders…………..we need to have them examined somewhere along great east road…………………….
money chokes……huge appetite for money to want to become billionaire sheikh like SANI ABACHA will cost your life…….SANI died on top of a woman because of viagara( huge appetite)
These plazas are highly over inflated. Any reasonable man can tell. Th office building is even smaller than what some Zambians build as residential houses. We are being ripped off while we look. Mwebantu
Sharon where are you? See how your president has been called names by this clique of bitter people. Their he-goat grabbed land from his people and he calls himself a leader with empathy.
PRESS STATEMENT
The cost of the Ndola Toll Plaza at US 4.3 million is way too much
Edgar Lungu commissioned the Ndola Toll Plaza which reportedly cost the taxpayers US $4.3 million which is about K51 million in our currency at the current exchange rates.
We find this figure highly inflated like many other government projects which are corruptly acquired amounting to daylight robbery of public resources.
Our quick investigations indicates that South Africa has been constructing highly modernised Toll Plazas at the cost of US500,000 only. So what’s so special for our Toll Plazas to cost such an enormous amount of money?
Even if they are trying to perfect the art of looting public resources, this is way too much and reckless, especially amidst the claimed austerity measures…
Cont’d
Even if they are trying to perfect the art of looting public resources, this is way too much and reckless, especially amidst the claimed austerity measures under the economy melt down.
We find it unbelievable and unjustified that PF can spend K51 million just to construct those pillars no matter what is fitted there.
A quick look at this year’s budget lines to ministries and government departments indicates that Ministry of Religious Affairs has been allocated K18,958,732, Ministry of Labour has been allocated K36,761,343, Public Service Management Division (PSMD) has been allocated K43,840,823, Local Government Service Commission barely K9.8 million for the whole year and it’s the same with many others yet one Toll Plaza costs us K51 million just to be burdening citizens…
Cont’d
…costs us K51 million just to be burdening citizens with more taxes.
The PF must have the conscious and care for the people even in stealing.
Jackie Mwiimbu
Leader of the opposition in Parliament and Monze Central MP
Laura Miti writes
$4.3 million Toll Plaza????
“Just how did we spend 4.3 million dollars on one toll plaza? Where exactly did the money go – cement, roofing sheets, electronics, air tickets to learn how toll plazas work in America – just what??”
Toll gates everywhere – for what? Stealing or failure to collect taxes from more productive ventures? You don’t just wake up and place a Toll gate where ever you feel. There has to be reasonable cause. Taxing the same motorists over and over is not widening the tax base. How is this ‘more money in peoples’ pockets’?
Then you have an ‘entire’ President wasting resources as usual to ‘commission’ the same. Never sitting down to address more pressing issues and be accountable by answering questions.