Lusaka City Council (LCC)has embarked on an expansion of the road network to decongest the city and facilitate easy movement of motor vehicles.
In this vein, LCC Public Relations Officer Henry Kapata has appealed to container owners to remove their stuff along the roads as as more space was needed in order to enable the expansion of narrow roads.
Mr Kapata noted that narrow roads were unable to accommodate the huge influx of traffic because of an increase in the number of vehicles in the city.
To this effect, he disclosed that the Council had since stopped renewing licenses for people owning large containers for their merchandise to pave way for road expansion.
He said all those whose licences were still valid for owning containers would not have them renewed.
Mr. Kapata told ZANIS in an interview in Lusaka today.
He said the city needed a better road network spacious enough to facilitate easy movement of vehicles adding that this would bring sanity to the city because there would be less congestion.
In another development, Mr. Kapata has called on residents of Lusaka’s Kalingalinga township to remain calm as robots at Chiparamba junction will soon be operational.
He confirmed that the Council has since received complaints from the residents who expressed concern that the robots were too fast as they only 30 seconds were elapsing for vehicles to pass instead of the standard two minutes.
However, Mr. Kapata defended the way the robots operated saying they were using solar power and the situation would normalise in the course of this week.
And Lusaka City Council says it will not leave any stone unturned in ensuring that those who were defying the smoking ban and vending offence are brought to book.
Council Public Relations Officer Henry Kapata will take strigent measures to mete out punishment on perpetrators of public offences.
Mr Kapata told ZANIS in a telephone interview in Lusaka today that street vendors will be fined K450 000 or in default six months simple imprisonment while defiant public smokers will pay K250 000 or in default to face a sentence of not less than two years.
says it is thankful to government for spending colossal sums of money to rehabilitate the city council’s fast truck court to control vending and public smoking among other public offences.
He explained that public places will bear notices reminding people against smoking, urinating and spitting in public as this will attract punishment.
Mr Kapata said smoking in places like stadia caused pollution resulting in health problems hence the need to control the nuisance.
He further paid tribute to central Government for spending colossal sums of money towards the rehabilitation of the Council’s fast track court which would be used to dispense cases on street vending and public smoking among other public offences.
He disclosed that a magistrate will be seconded to the court and once operational these cases will be looked at.
The LCC Public Relations Officer said the developments taking place were in line with Government’s efforts in making the country clean and healthy.
At the moment, he observed that it was very difficult for the local authority to control vendors in the absence of a court.
Turning to Lusaka residents, Mr Kapata urged them to be vigilant and report anyone found committing public offences saying the Council was currently understaffed hence it was not possible to easily capture such offences.
ZANIS/ENDS/VP/CLM
A lot of cities have been abandoned in favour of starting afresh. One thinks of New Delhi (India), New Kingston (Jamaica), Abuja (Nigeria) all which were a result of governments deciding that Old Delhi, Old Kingston and Lagos, respectively, were beyond redemption. Lusaka is an eclectic collection of ramshackle structures and in my view requires people with a long term vision to turn around. Some of the most beautiful cities in Africa, including Abidjan (Ivory Coast) and Asmara (Eritrea), were presided over by visionary people. Luanda and Kinshasa have potential to become great cities. I am not sure about Lusaka. It reflects our lack of ambition. How sad!
Don’t waste money on expanding Lusaka City roads. It is time there was decentralization of commerce centers around the city so that the traffic associated with them can be diverted from the town center. The solution is to disperse the business operations and stop any further expansion of the city center. For now the morning traffic wave will continue to flow into the city center because everyone wants to establish their business operation in that congested location.
This is good man.
It gets so hard to move out of the city centre because of the traffic. Especially on Friday evenings. It is torture.
Long overdue. What happened to the new re-planning?
Evidently, the ND administration has had a blue print of working it out with the Japanese Government to put up some ring roads-Loops around Lusaka then move to other major cities in the country before 2011. The economy is on the pick and commerce in the cosmopolitan is becoming difficulty. There is a challenge for Policy experts, Economists, Town and Urban planners to courageously sale to the civic and Central Government the idea of turning atleat two cities into Africa’s first Aerotropolis Cities we could call smart cities. We need to harness the Growth with big & long term visions.
I strongly believe Lusaka should start expanding or shaping up a new commerce city in Lilayi. GRZ has the biggest undeveloped land with some isolated “special assets” there since the UNIP days of liberation struggles. The prevalent sustainable regional peace challenges us to development oriented converting what we have into “smart Cities”. Japan and China are useful partners to help us realize such big infrastructure projects.
We are in a hurry to develop our country and fortunately collective action and idea sharing mechanism have a big platform under the New Dealers reigning.But this dispensation will never be short of the “good-for-nothing” hate peddlers who see a dark end even in the face of progressive reforms!
SOLUTION. Elevated roads all around the country plus toll gates.
Good comments by all. But, #s 1, 2 and 8 are spot on. With the calibre of our politicians and city planners, Lusaka can never be repaired. Its high time the city was moved to (suggestively Kabwe) another even more central location to start afresh. Kabwe is centrally positioned and not really spoiled by our town planners’ misdirectedness. Better still, down town Lusaka can easily be dicongested by establishing new towns within (but away from down town Lusaka)Lusaka. This entails new and state of the art road network. An immediate example is Gaborone. All the world cities are structured on the same principle. There are many towns within a town which are have mayors who run those towns within..
…correction:towns that have mayors who run those towns within a town. Eg u don’t need to go to down town Lusaka to go and post a letter, etc…
…Before the penaulty of K450, 000 and K250, 000 are slapped on offenders I think it would be more reasonable for first offenders to do a community service such as thoroughly cleaning compounds for, say, a month if an offender has a jail sentence of one month, etc. Persistance offenders should even be punished more than currently specified.
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On traffic light-Mr Kapata, did not know what he was talking about when he said, and I quote. However, Mr. Kapata defended the way the robots operated saying, “they were using solar power and the situation would normalise in the course of this week.” Solar power is very effective. Solar power does not mean that the gadget will be working inefficiently as he put it. Most of the things now use solar power in developed countries. Eg, Street lights, traffic lights, street furniture, domestic garden lighting, domestic lighting and heating, etc, and they operate very effectively and efficiently. The problem (maybe) could be in the programming of those traffic lights…
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Maybe the answer is to pay more money to software engineers (computer programmers-to put it in simple language), to program for more functions on traffic lights.
Again, Mr Kapata, should have informed the public on what sort of power the traffic lights will be using for them to normalize “in the course of this week”. This would enable the readership to justify the reasoning behind solar power and the latest form of power.
Coming to the traffic lights, again-Traffic lights and ROBOTS are pretty different things. Robots are software driven machines employed to do the dangerous work which otherwise wouldn’t be done by humans as it will be fatal. Eg, robots are employed to handle radio active materiaks. Or in mass production industries. Or in mass production industry say car, or computer manufacturing industries. Where humans cannot cope with the rate of perfomance to achieve the required mass output or repeatitive work. There4 ROBOTs are best suited and employed for such purposes. Please, donnot confuse Traffic Lights with ROBOTS
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Traffic lights are employed to control the flow of motor vehicle, human, or other machines in order to avoid or lessen accidents or/and traffic jams. Editor get this right. My ten year old girl was confused and argued that Zambia wasn’t a poor country if it can even employ ROBOTS on roads.
Peter you know what these fellas mean by robot lights it is traffic lights in western countries.Some of us used to say the same thing before going to the western countries.
China masters the African game
Beijing is offering billions in trade deals with no strings attached, says a s h smyth
The pristine Chinese gateway at Chambishi in northern Zambia was supposed to celebrate the arrival of President Hu Jintao of China and the launch of a new $200m smelter at the town’s Chinese-owned copper mine. But when protesting African miners surrounded the site last Friday, the event was abandoned.
Chambishi exemplifies China’s questionable involvement in Africa. Conditions are poor, the area remains undeveloped and 46 miners died in an explosion there two years ago – all of which explain the protests. But mining accidents happen elsewhere, and, under Zambian (mis)management, the mine was failing until the Chinese arrived in 1998.The cancelled photo-op is vaguely embarrassing, but changes nothing. China imports 63 per cent of its base metals from Zambia alone. And Zambia needs China; 64 per cent of its exports are metals,
The economic needs of China and nations such as Zambia inevitably trump details such as wages or health and safety
…and the Chinese have invested $600m in Zambian hydro electrics. The economic needs of both countries will inevitably trump details such as minimum wages or health and safety standards (rare in Africa, anyway).
As for Zambia, so for the rest of the continent. Mr Hu’s current tour also includes stops in Cameroon, Liberia, South Africa, Namibia, Seychelles, Sudan and Mozambique. In 2006, China’s trade with Africa was worth $55.5bn, a 40 per cent increase from 2005. But in case African governments needed further incentive, Mr Hu (left) took with him $3bn in credit deals, aid and interest-free loans.
He casually handed Cameroon $100m in grants and ‘soft loans’ for technical and economic initiatives, and telecoms projects. He also wrote off the country’s debt, discussed programmes to provide housing and drinking water and agreed to build two schools and a hospital in the capital.Projects like these are more directly beneficial to Africans than donor money – and much harder for politicians to steal. According to World Bank estimates, last year alone
China spent $10bn on similar schemes throughout Africa.Liberia doesn’t get many visits from world leaders, which is odd given its massive reserves of iron ore, timber and rubber. Since no one else seems interested in the war-ravaged nation, China has moved in. President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former economist, clearly sees some benefit for Liberia – 50,000 jobs in the port of Buchanan, for example.In Sudan, as Western governments complain, Mr Hu did not make Chinese aid or trade conditional on ending the Darfur crisis. Instead, he financed the building of a new presidential palace.
Sudan’s economy is expected to grow by 13 per cent this year (faster even than China’s), in part facilitated by the dams and roads the Chinese have built in Sudan. What was the West offering?One-party China is in no position to set democratic or good-governance conditions on their African dealings. So it doesn’t. Chinese involvement comes with ‘no strings’, domestic
‘The Chinese treat us as equals. The West treats us as former subjects,’ says President Festus Mogae of Botswana
….non-interference a point of honour. And China doesn’t preach: it is not in Africa to effect cultural or political changes. Its leaders’ only concern is their own economy.All of which comes as something of a relief to African leaders. China’s economic empire-building is little different from America’s – but at least it’s transparent. In the words of President Festus Mogae of Botswana: “I find that the Chinese treat us as equals. The West treats us as former subjects.”
What benefits Africa is not aid and sanctimony, but trade and economy. Conditional aid hasn’t improved African governance, nor made Africans prosperous. So, after 50 years and a trillion aid-dollars, perhaps it’s time for a change of tack. What Africans need are jobs: the Chinese will provide these, and gladly.
I have always been a believer of building a New Lusaka where sanity will reign. #1 and #6 you are right.
Anyhow the idea is good but we still have a long way to go. Lusaka city is very dirty. As Peter has already stated, community service to offenders would do good to our dirty city.
Fellow bloggers, i think we digress alot from the subject of discussion. i do not seem to understand why. I expected to get views on the Lcc road expansion and the newly defined public offences but what am reading about are stories on the chocho lees. Who really is interested in all this inconsequential data? I would not be surprised that Sage has hooked up a job with the chinese. Best wishes!!!
The kafue road is an eye-sore from about Andrews Motel to the Findeco circle. Has LCC any ideas of improving the image of that stretch? The same from the north through Emalsdale to city centre.
Mr Kapata sir, who issued the licences to container operators in the first place, containers are gratified Ntemba’s that is all, much as they look a bit better than a plastic covered ntemba at the end of the day it is wrong to conjest the city center and if LCC had listening to their planning department, they would not have ended up this way. Anyhow the plan for roads is long overdue and I personally am looking forward to how the CBD is going to look. I would agree with the rign road arrangement and over passes if the City council feels it can manage that project. Alternatively do BOT (Build Operate and Transfer) with the provate sector and introduce toll gates, I am told that is how RSA…
cont’d 30
… has managed to sustain its good roads. I am not sure how practical tool gates will be for district roads but I think it is practical, I saw something like this in the US. On the robots (traffic lights) I have observed that but further observation is that those lights rarely work, I have not actuallt found them working. And someone also mentioned the entry into the city. The only good a clean entry into the city is form the east. Western side (Kanyama), Southern (Msisi), Nothern (Mandevu), though I am told the traders at the independence arc on GNR are being removed which is a good approach. The council surely needs to do something about that as well. It remains to be seen.
guys atleast we are going somewere……….bit by bit we will get it ryte. the mess that lusaka is in is a mess gathered from 40 yrs of bad planning. kaunda never bothered and chiluba was too busy shagg**g prostitues all over the show.
#32 Pointer. Kaunda bothered. Lusaka became dirty when Chiluba got into power. At least during the UNIP reign we used to frown on street vendors. And towns were much cleaner than what they are under the MMD.
#33 I second you, the mess we are in was a result of Chiluba’s ineptitude.
Phew!!!!!!!!!!!! At lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng last! Maybe we could be reaching home in the needed 5 minutes drive than the 1 hour drive we are subjected to every day.
Abena PETER # 9 & SAGE.Ever heard of the term summary or brief.
Problem especially 4 PETER z you want to write like you are talking.
Road expansion is not the long term answer, we need to re-plan our whole road network system including appropriate flyovers and undercarriage ways. Our planners are very behind, worse than laymen. We are hearing of economic emprovements, economic zones, investments flowing in, more power to be generated etc. This means remodelling Lusaka. We will need more space and bigger public busses to be particially powered by electricity. Simply put, we are slowly becoming like european towns in terms of congestion and sophistication. Dont just talk of moving containers, where are we heading to?
Good for you #16. Can’t understand why Peter # 14 and 15 needs to be so “holier than thou” and la-di-da. Who is he fooling anyway.
#36 Wanzelu. Even b4 I settle 2 write I think of many pipo. The highly educated, moderately, and barely educated pipo. Mostly I consider evry much the moderately and barely educated pipo and not the highly educated pipo such as u. There4 if I start summarizing n abbreviating, most pipo ll find it very difficult to understand me. In Zambia (mostly) theres a culture to look down on the disadvantaged. I try 2 cultivate a different culture of approach. I always want the cross section pipo to apprehend my contribution. Who knows, like me, 1 may bennefit from my contribution. I hope that answers ur anxiety, ‘Wanzelu’.
Peter # 39,
So you have had some target audience hopes in your spamming business of incoherences?????? I wish you knew the truth at play here. Zambian blogs have the same diaspora based bloggers merely mutating in ID use as many times you have been.The deciding Zambian in Government mandates like your own parents in Twapia are stinking poor to own a computer or connect to the ZK 5,000,000.00 internet connection fee besides the ZK 400,000 monthly service. fee.
This is really Fantastic. Can someone collect these brilliant views and take them to LCC, may be they will wake up. The truth is we need a new generation of local authority managers and governors. This old generation was born and brought up in the villages. Asking them to run and develop Lusaka imaginatively is like trying to draw water out of a stone. They are obviously brilliant and immensely talented guys who worked their *@?&*# off to get out of the village and personally develop themselves (obviously through education) and lift themselves out of village squalor to where they are now. But obviously the village is still in them. Bottom line! To develop Lusaka get the villagers out!
the only solution i think to this congestion pa lusaka is by only building more shopping centers or complex i.e manda hill, arcades in places such as woodlands kabulonga and great north roads so that people dont have to travel long distances to do business ij town center but they can have businesses right there near there homes have still have customers (i know space might be a little tricky but they can do it like in europe of which shopping complexes having underground parking spaces) and another thing…
is the govt atleast building tuma trams around lusaka to be moving in a ring direction i.e having a tram moving from chelston coming to town and another from independence stadium to town and still another from ibex to lusaka though they can have other alternatives in terms of movement the point being to reduce congestion of tuma buses filling up the roads just to get to town qyuckly and back thats why we read so many fatal accidents coz of the same thing. i dont know what my fellow Diaspora’s think about this. i just read my fellow blogs like peter and sage where talking about tuma chocho lees investments in zed, tungatandizeko kumanga ma tram kaili pamodzi natuma japanise guys
#29. anonymous
When did you leave Zambia. Just wanted to know
THE REST
You guys are talking as if Zambia is as developed as SA or Europe. Fact is it’s a poor third world country. We cannot afford such projects as fly-over highways or aerotropolis cities. To do that will require a great amount of borrowing, plunging Zambia into debt again. Come on people.
ZRA should propose a law to Parliament that will NOT ALLOW certain Vehicle Models into the country. For instance, ANY CAR TO BE BROUGHT INTO ZAMBIA SHOULD NOT BE OLDER THAN 10 YEARS eg for now it must be 1998 Models and later models only. THIS WILL PARTLY HELP DECONGEST ZAMBIA WITH JUNKS FRON JAPAN AND RSA.
IN A GROWING ECONOMY LIKE ZAMBIA, “TRAFFIC IS ONE OF THE GROWING ECONOMY ITSELF”. Just put up OVERHEAD highways and RING ROADS like Egypt and RSA are doing. What you have in Zambia is just a drop in the ocean and not REAL TRAFFIC JAMS. GO TO CAIRO,EGYPT and see. At Peak Time, a 5 km stretch takes 3 hours in 5 lane one-way. Chelston to Town would take 5 hours. LETS PLAN THE CITIES of Zed.
Also i thought you guys would commend the LCC for the projects they are carrying out. They are the only City Council i’ve heard of in Zambia that are installing new traffic lights, putting up roads and other various projects. I have not heard from the Ndola City Council concerning there projects.
We have to learn to know our country’s limits. To talk about Overhead Highways means more debt. I thought you would be happy with the little projects our country is carrying out. Especially for a country as economically handicaped as Zambia.
44 crazy_zambian, you just said that zambia is the third world country which is correct but do you know how much money they spend on these so called embassies paying them for the job they dont care to do and better yet on ministers gratuities etc the same amount of money can be spend on making development in the country the problem zedian govt has is that they want to wait until its last minute for them to start thinking of ring roads etc whilst others are already planing for the future our politicians are busy stealing…. so dont support their lazy activities in any way. anyway LCC should do something about rubbish dumps muma komboni
Please STOP these trivial developments, that requires going back to the drawing board every 2 years. Thats time and money wasting. Make Lusaka the commercial city and move the capital to Kabwe (Johannesburg and Pretoria) and build a high way between. i think that could work well. Not only will it decongest Lusaka but offer a huge space and opportunity for developing for other cities around. And please don’t give an excuse of “being expensive” because Zambia has got all the money. “Where these a will,these a way”, somebody just has to do it, then the rest follows or otherwise forget about real positive development!
Is the picture above the recent one?? If it is, then it is a sad story for mother Zambia. That is how Freedom street looked like in the 1980s.
most of u zedians who are contrbting here are ovseas,just like me and u want lusaka to look like were u are,not in our generation.but we are getting there.lcc needs to DECENTRALISE its operations like -trading licences,land rate fees,etc.come up city like matero cty,chelstone cty,chilenje city,kabulonga city,makeni city.grz neds to decentrlise its busy depts like,lands-title procsing,pssport office,zra,drivers lnces office,etc.further constrt rd west of chilanga link it after zane muone motel,as for the east prt chlga to silrest ,all wt we ned is a good LINKING system of rds frm point A to B.DECEZATION IS THE KEY.wholesales shd be fud in those propsd cities.
As way of decongesting intersections such as the new traffic lights in kalingalinga at kamaloops/alick nkata intersection, the lcc forgot to create a fitter lane for those turning into kamaloops. what will happen is that if vehicles turning into kamaloops are in front, they will block the vehicles going straight in alick nkata. results will be congesstion at intersectioin. the answer lies in expanding roads at all intersections to create fitter lanes so that there are no holdups of traffic.
Plan for wider road reserves especially for major road to allow for expansions in the future. Otherwise the problems of congestion will never leave us.
50 i concur with your mind set i think were demanding more from a baby that he can handle so lets just give zed a chance to develop in smaller areas first