The Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure Development has revealed that it has not yet chosen a contractor for the construction of the new State house.
Speaking during an interview with ZANIS in Lusaka today, Ministry Spokesperson Jeff Banda, disclosed that only feasibility studies for the construction process have been initiated.
Mr. Banda said the suggestion to construct a new state was made about three years ago by a parliamentary committee on infrastructure.
The need to construct a new State House was necessitated by calls from stake holders that the state of the current one is old and lacks modern amenities.
Mr. Banda stated that for the past three years the issue was not attended to, but he was quick to say that there is an allocation in the 2019 budget for the process to begin.
Over the weekend, Minister of Housing and Infrastructure Development Ronald Chitotela said that in 2016 parliament appointed a committee to assess the need to Construct a new State House. The mandate included the assessment of the structural integrity of the existing State House Buildings.
According to the Minister, the committee physically inspected State House and their report showed that serious cracks have developed in the structure and that the existing State house built in 1932 for the then governor of Northern Rhodesia clearly has become both a safety and security danger.
Mr Chitotela said that the proposal to construct a new state house received overwhelming support from members of parliament as evidenced by the fact that MPs approved both the proposal to construct New state house and the 2019 Budget Line for its Construction
Just develop Zambia please.Why do you mind loses camped in opposition?a new State house is for all Zambians and it will remain there forever!!!These chaps in opposition are anti-development due to jealous as they know too well that majority Zambians want to see this country developed!!Recall in 2016,Kainde and his team used to say Zambians wont eat roads so PF shall lose.What happened? “SONTA APOWABOMBA” killed Kainde and all his clowns!!The rest is history.Therefore,continue developing Zambia and we shall reward you in 2021-period!!
I truly pray the good Lord intervenes by any means necessary to make sure this foolish idea of wasting money never ever happens.
Please authorize specialized training for doctors in Zambia. The next president will be evacuated from a beautiful state house to die without dignity in India.
I truly pray the good Lord intervenes by any means necessary to make sure this pathetic idea of wasting money never ever happens.
They would rather be airlifted from State House to morningside in RSA when UTH is just across the road.
I went to uni in a 150-year old building, Us white house has been around from 1800 and still standing. We don’t know anything about building preservation, that’s why we keep settling for alluminium clad Chinese buildings
This is just more money wasting by this reckless administration. If proper maintenance was being done on the State House over the years, there could’ve been no need to construct a new one. There are so many other pressing needs, where this money could’ve been used, instead of spending it on a new State House. The State House is only 87 years old, while the White House in America is 227 years old. And yet the White House, which is much older, is still going strong. So are you going to be building new State Houses after every 87 years? Stop wasting our meager resources.
Just sayin’ – Lazy Lungu wants a helipad to land the helicopter…Sata rubbished these things but we have this Chawama chap Edgar who wants to take off from the building to the custom built Russian 7 seater jet at KKIA…meanwhile there are no drugs and proper facilities in UTH and kids are being taught under trees in rural areas.
Where is that lazy man anyway…since he left on 8th ?
“The Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure Development has revealed that it has not yet chosen a contractor for the construction of the new State house.”
Of course the crook Ronald Chitotela has not chosen the contractor as he is waiting for someone to give him a big brown envelope…everything is rotten not proper transparent tender procurement systems.
If PMs have hearts for the Zambian people they won’t authorize this project. We have a lot of other areas where the funds can be spent.
African presidents all suffer from the same brain disease:-
– Long convoys of cars as if anyone wants to kill them
– Private jets – Lungu has just bought 2 missile-proof jets for himself
– Huge delegations when traveling abroad – Mrs Esther Lungu just traveled to USA to receive 4 donated fire trucks. Her delegation was 25 pipo including a waiter, 7 policemen, a cookie, a bedroom attendant, 4 secretaries, 7 journalists etc
– Zambia has huge shrines for dead presidents. Compare with George Bush’s simple neat grave
– Huge State Houses. Compare with No.10 Downing Street where British PM resides
– They surround themselves with crooked shady characters. Look at Kaizer Zulu & also Findlay, a well known drug dealer
We need to reset our priorities. Our youths are desperate, resorting to…
CONT’D…
resorting to alcohol & drug abuse due to these greedy politicians. Others are drowning in Mediterranean Sea. Others are fleeing to RSA (where they’re not welcome) to work as maids, plaiting hair or even as pr0stitutes.
Building a Grandiose State Houses is a lack of vision, compassion, wisdom. It’s actually an insult to the masses
@ Malozo-10 Downing Street has over 300 rooms. That is not one small house. Don’t let the picture you see always of the residential address number “10” fool you.
Who initiated it is not what is being questioned. What’s the logic behind it? Why can’t you carry out renovations on the existing one instead of starting from ground zero? Imagine if the USA government had nincompoops like you, how many White Houses will they have?
Please authorize specialized training for doctors in Zambia. The next president will be evacuated from a beautiful state house to die without dignity in India.
wow that is a god piece at a cost of on US$20MILLION AH LETS GO AHEAD NOW AND APPOINT A LOCAL CONTRACTOR like zuthonya to construct it
Wow! Please build it next to my house!
Can it be completed before 2021?
That name Ronald Chitotela just know someone is getting rich here and the Chinese are somewhere on the background.
*..in…
Chink Construction Enterprise can do a good job, complete with a grant from President XI to further strengthen the long standing bonds of friendship between the two countries.
Or maybe Prime Minister Theresa May for leaving us with a dilapidated colonial building fit only for a colonial governor? No, she is too busy with Brexit.
Or maybe President Trump? No, he is too busy fighting battles for his Mexico wall. Also government shutdown, no salaries for government workers.
So when you turn the current one into a so called museum it will magically stop being a safety hazard?
They know there is no money refurb…they would rather spend spend spend…no shame at all
Waste of resources and luck of priorities. The education and health systems are in dilapidated situation and you want to waste money on pleasing presidents who do nothing. It is a big shame to see our future learning under trees and sitting on stones. And we are planning to waste resources on a mere building for one person. Cursed is a person who will accept to build such a house minus consideration for people who cannot afford three meals per day because their parents have not received their hard-earned pension dues. It is so diabolical and heart breaking to see children surviving in the streets and scavenging food in the bins. This is a sign of absence of leadership. We are creating a time bomb.If these children learn how to hold guns,this nation will be on fire.They learn it a hard way…
Is this a priority as of now ? Where are the austerity measures thrown
We Have no clean running water in our towns. Our hospitals have no beds, linen or medicine. Our Universities are short of accommodation, teaching aids and lecture rooms. We have schools without desks or windows. Our President will soon get a Sixty Million Dollar Jet and is about to get a spanking new USD 20Million Crib. High flying, Hi Living. Who says there is hunger and poverty in Zambia?
You are also drinking your own feces in your tap water ….these foooools are overwhelming voting for new State House.
@Czar
Its kids like you who need to be educated. Maybe you attended school but i can certainly say that you arent educated or you used to miss vlasses and now you think you can suddenly be the expert in everything.
For your information, the White House wasnt built by colonialists in the US, but built by those who knew it who serve centuries unlike the State House which temporary building by the colonialists who knew very well that they would not stay forever in a foreign land. Let Government build the new State House that would be a hallmark for our country! Mwabashani imwe ba opposition, no wonder you will remain in that cave.
Said like a typical cadre. To you anyone with a dissenting opinion is opposition. Such type of thinking is retrogressive. The Chinese who most likely will bank roll and build the”New” State House are equally foreigners. So what are you talking about. Stop thinking with your stomach and think of the future generation who will have to pay off some of these unnecessary debts we are incurring.
@Malimso. So what you’re saying is, since colonialists built it then it’s substandard? If that’s the case then let’s vacate every single building the colonialists built, because according to you they were not experts. It looks like you suffer from a rare form of hasty generalizations fallacy.
We also need a new UTH which was built in 1939.. and takes care of more than one person.. that one can also turn to a museum to improve tourism since the airline is coming… also we need a very new Livingstone General hospital which was built way before 1910 should also be a museum since old building are being earmarked for museum transformation…
Also Stanley bar should be a museum to document the history of alcohol abuse from 1935 to 2019.. and how decisions made in drunkenness can cause a country to backside in development
The excuses advanced to build this edifice are just not good.Fix the current one and expand for modern amenities where needed just like USA and Britain have done to their more than 200yr old executive mansions .Africans just prove they love poverty with such *****ic decisions.
Big mistake, you build ECL such a mansion you are basically forcing him to rule forever. He is going to do everything possible to rig and compromise our institutions like he is doing to extend his comfort till his death. Our parliament is joke now, approving such waste and many other nonsensical things
On security grounds the Plan Does snot meet security standards looking at the surrounding perimeters and walls
Its not a properly fortified Building as in 1 2 3 4 before state house walls and access is poorly designed with support services building not well arranged to support the activities of statehouse and its occupants
It should be either be scrapped or postponed until further notice maybe in 2040 and the current statehouse well positioned and thought out be maintained in use
It takes time to build these things. What if I told you that the main beneficiary may be the President after Lungu. It could be Trib.al Hacks if he handles himself well…..kikikikiki….. I see that even the trib.als don’t believe that Trib.al Hacks can ever be President of Zambia, not at the rate he is making a trib.al nuisance of himself.
Jay Gay, want to advise your trib.al?
Look at this dumbs$$ so the justification to build a new State House is for Lungu’s successors..really laughable…you think the President sleeps in that building, that’s just an office block I too visited that place under KK when I was young..there are mansions in there ..these are simply excesses
Hehehehe…….ati the current state house lacks modern facilities. All those state house tunnels we were shown by Chiluba in 1996? Are those not modern facilities? Ba PF naimwe, should building a new state house surely be our first priority? The existing and newly created districts are desperately begging for development and we can surely treat this state house as our priority? Zampost and some council workers have not been paid for several months……PF don’t do this to us please! Is this the change we voted for in 2011 sure!
US$ 20 million can construct a small hydropower plant and electrify some rural areas thereby reducing on deforestation.
This current president of s poor sh*thole country like Zambia if he truly worked for the people and not his own pocket and ego would leave the current State House and go to rent a house in Chibolya… convert it into a Museum revenue generation. He doesn’t deserve luxuries any more than a kis starving in Chibolya or Ngombe compound.
What kind of priorities are these? They just built a mansion for that thief RB who served for like 1 year as president, and now this Castle that even the Queen can’t afford. Just even look at that stagnant drainage in the City which they can’t fix; kids learning in trees and hospitals without any medicine and equipment. Man is this some kind of a curse of Africans by Satan? I really just don’t get it. Unbelievable and really painful at the same time…
Just for Sovereign risk , pride retention and simply avoiding the perception of state capture and be receptive and inclusive to all nationals and not be seen as a house of ……if there are prospects for construction in the future that should be done by Zambian own Gov money not any other Financing or Support to preserve the supremacy of the presidency not on rented money and if any