Friday, March 29, 2024

No buses into, out of Nakonde until further notice-Minister

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Muchinga Province Minister Malozo Sichone has directed that no passenger buses coming from Lusaka and Copperbelt provinces will be allowed to enter Nakonde district.

The temporal ban, which will last for 14 days, is with effect from tomorrow Thursday, April 30, 2020. Mr. Sichone said the directive to halt the movement of all buses from the Copperbelt and Lusaka provinces is aimed at prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the province and allow massive screening for the virus in the border town.He added that banning buses from entering and leaving Nakonde district will protect the province from recording any case of coronavirus as health workers get on the ground to conduct massive screening.

The Minister said allowing public buses to get into and out of the province poses great risk not only to the people of Muchinga but the entire nation.Mr. Sichone said this when he received donations of hygiene materials and food items from China Railway Seventh Group and Tanzania Zambia Mafuta ( TAZAMA) pipeline limited in Chinsali.The donation will go towards the fight against COVID-19 pandemic and flood victims in the province.He said the fight against COVID-19 requires concerted efforts from all well-wishers as government alone cannot manage to stop the spread of the deadly disease.

On Monday this week, Minister of Health Chitalu Chilufya announced that a team of health workers has been dispatched to Nakonde district in Muchinga Province to carry out massive screening for COVID-19. The planned massive screening in the border town of Nakonde follows reports that a Chingola couple that travelled from Dar-es-salaam in Tanzania through Nakonde, tested positive to COVID -19. A total of 22 people, among them bankers, who came into contact with the Chingola couple and workers at a named lodge where the two stayed for about four days, have since been put under quarantine for 14 days.The quarantine has been extended to a total of 107 families coming from the initial 22 people who came into contact with the Chingola couple while in Nakonde.

Meanwhile, China Railway Seventh Group Site Manager Tang Haisheng said the firm stands with the Zambian people in fighting the COVID -19 pandemic.Mr. Tang said this is because the universal virus knows no race or national borders hence the need to work together to fight it.He said the donation reflects the corporate social responsibility of his company and further demonstrates the cooperation between China and Zambia in fighting the pandemic.

Mr. Tang added that the donation also shows that the firm does not only build good roads and create jobs through various projects but it is also committed to fighting the negative impact on human beings in Zambia.

The road contractor donated 500 pieces of face masks, 100 germ guards, 22 sprayers, 1,000 tablets of hand washing soap, 200 bags of mealie meal weighing 25 kilogrammes each, 100 containers of five litres cooking oil and 100 packets of one kg brown sugar.

Meanwhile, Tanzania Zambia Mafuta (TAZAMA) pipeline has also donated assorted items towards the fight of COVID-19 worth over K 40,000 to Chinsali health office.TAZAMA pipeline Senior Public Relations Officer Kenneth Kalunga made the K1 million worth donation on behalf of the company.

Mr. Kalunga said TAZAMA has donated infrared thermometers, face masks, hand washing buckets among others to selected districts along the pipeline between Ndola in the Copperbelt province and Dar-es-salaam in Tanzania. He said the pipeline, working in collaboration with the Ministry of Health in Muchinga province, has also set up one inland screening point as a measure of protecting the region against COVID-19 pandemic.

17 COMMENTS

    • I thought the bigger threat for nakonde is from the outside (TZ) I thought those boarders needs serious scrutiny of people coming into the country.

  1. It is too late to act, that’s lack of foresight this should have happened 4 weeks back and instead it was business as usual. The border too should have been closed and only allowing essential goods and services should have been in place. These PF government is swift in corrupt activities but very careless protecting its citizens.

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  2. It’s never too late to act. Look beyond the shore to USA and Brazil and tell me when they started closing borders. Even the New York Mayor admitted failure for not moving swift enough but they still managed to flatten the curve albeit after paying a heavy price of more than 10,000 deaths.

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  3. @Kz…and your president wants to open churches. Thanks God we hsve a responsible church leaders unlike christians for Lungu. There is simply no cordination among these pf fools. Ni chipantepante.

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  4. Isn’t there a more systematic approach that would not cause a back log and blockage. Any is it within the mandate of the provincial minister to literally close a national border?

  5. Look at Botswana government which acted swiftly and closed all points of entry and eventually locked down the entire country immediately when they heard that the disease was causing havoc in South Africa and almost a month now tge country still in lockdown. I can now tell you that they’re thinking of reopening in the next few weeks because they feel they have contained the disease. Unlike your PF who playing a cat and mouse games.

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  6. @ Sikufele, my thoughts exactly. I didn’t know provincial ministers have this mandate. That said, more stringent measures should be extended to all major entry points, Livingstone, Kazungula etc.

  7. Don’t just support PF because you’re a benefactor, it should make sense. PF government has failed in every aspect.

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  8. The Constitution recognises the Provincial Minister as the head of Govt at provincial level. It’s only that Edgar likes moving around otherwise he doesn’t need to burn fuel just to commission a toilet at Chisokone market. Just like the Bowman people are disparaging, he’s in charge of Govt business in Lusaka province, even what Chilufya is doing is supposed to be done by the PHO or Bowman.

  9. Never too late. What percentage of people in countries that have lockeddown have died versus recovered? One will hope that when a country has a total lockdown there will be no new cases.

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  10. Someone will wake up tomorrow and close off Chipata just like that nothing systematic just chipante-chipante

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  11. Its true bowman should lock lusaka aswell its an epicentre. He is the boss of lusaka provice, the contitution is very clear,the provincial min is the head of govt business.

  12. Can’t the government, through the appropriate ministries, find a more reasoned and co-ordinated way of dealing with the COVID situation nationwide, rather than have a provincial minister deciding to bar traffic from the rest of the country? What if other provincial ministers did the same?

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