By Chaka Zulu

The growing traffic problems in our city calls for urgent and effective remedies. Yet old-school ‘solutions’ such as flyovers, wider roads, and elevated expressways actually make matters worse. Flyovers represent a twentieth century delusion of free-flowing traffic, built at extraordinary costs for a very small percentage of road users.

Over decades, planning and development authorities around the world have fetishized the flyover as putative symbols of ‘modernity’ or ‘technological advancement’. Their actions to fuel the velocity and demand of private vehicles have shaped the urban space discourse. Flyovers continue to hack through the urbanscapes, displacing homes and economies.

In reality, while such infrastructure may provide a short-term illusion of relief from traffic flow, but by making it easier for people to use their own vehicles, new roads attract even more traffic and repeat the vicious cycle of congestion all over again.

Around the world, cities from Seoul to San Francisco are tearing down flyovers and/or rejuvenating dead spaces under the flyover with human scaled spaces that promote green modes of transport. In doing so, these cities have been able to reduce pollution, improve safety, and ensure that high quality public transport offers a meaningful alternative to sitting in traffic.

Cities in India have started to recognise that the key to urban mobility is moving people, not vehicles. In 2016, Ranchi (capital city of Jharkhand), a city for which ITDP India Programme has provided technical support since 2013, took bold steps and stalled the construction of two flyovers on Main Road.

The Urban Development and Housing Department, Government of Jharkhand, cancelled the flyover project that was proposed to decongest the city area, and instead focused on designing the street to prioritise the cleanest, most efficient modes: walking, cycling, and public transport.

Over a third of the population in India cities rely on walking, cycling, and other forms of human-powered transport to commute to work and get around cities every day. Increasing the use of cycles and the ease of walking is one of the most affordable and practical ways to reduce CO2 emissions, while boosting health and access to economic opportunity.

Lusaka should also focus on public transport driven mobility. By international standards, our cities need 20-30 km of mass rapid transit for every one million residents. This means that the greater city like Lusaka require over 200 km of rapid transit. Currently, NO suburban rail and metro combined, it would take three generations to build enough rapid transit in the city!

One of the most effective option to scale up the nation’s ability to provide high capacity public transport corridors is the Bus Rapid Transit, also known as the BRT. The system features dedicated median lanes for buses, allowing commuters to bypass the congestion in mixed traffic lanes.

A Bus Rapid Transit can carry anywhere between 10,000-30,000 people per hour per direction, which is approximately seven to eight times more than the capacity of a 2-lane flyover. The system can also be deployed quickly at a fraction of the cost of a flyover. A flyover costs approximately US$1M per km, whereas, a Bus Rapid Transit costs much less per km.

Cities like Seoul, San Francisco, Toronto, built flyovers between the 1950s and 1980s, only to pull them down later to make space for its people. To be ‘smart’, African cities must learn from these examples and best practises. Our cities should realise that such infrastructure only begets more traffic and pollution, and shift focus to prioritising walking, cycling, as a realistic solution for heathy benefits and the use of public transport for business opportunities for driver and conductors .

Imagine how healthy, cheaper and faster public transport would become and the job opportunities that will come with these innovative solution for the buses and taxis business.

Next we will look at how we are trying to decongest the city of Lusaka while recongesting it by building a 25,000 conference centre right in it.

The New Hope MMD in government will seek to provide enhanced mobility solutions for the public such as Metro and other efficient, cheaper modern transport solutions.

The author is the Chairperson of Transport and Communication in the New Hope MMD and also a Parliamentary candidate for Chadiza Constituency

By Bizwell Mutale

The reckless talk and provocative behaviour by Hon Jack Mwiimbu resulting in UPND cadres attempting to stone and embarrass the Head of State Excellency President Edgar Chagwa Lungu on his recent visit to Monze District was very irresponsible, shameful and extremely disgusting.

1. UPND THUGGERY AND BAD MANNERS IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL TONGAS BUT OF HAKAINDE HICHILEMA:

As a proud Tonga from Monze, I am with many other tribemates from Southern Province who are extremely disappointed by Hakainde Hichilema, Mwiimbu and UPND thuggery as it goes against the traditional values of Ba Tonga people who practise a culture of respect for elders and authority.

We shudder to think what would have happened had one from the hired mob threw a stone at the Presidential motorcade (like they did at BP filling Station in Monze last year) the State Security wings travelling with the Head of State’s convoy reacted with weaponry force to the menacing confrontation of Jack Mwiimbu’s led UPND cadres.

2. UPND HAS A DANGEROUS PATTERN OF ATTEMPTING TO DISRUPT PRESIDENTIAL CONVOYS TO TRIGGER NATIONWIDE ETHNIC UNREST

Zambians must be reminded that this is not happening for the first time. It is clear that the UPND leadership under HH have a very deliberate strategy calculated at inciting anarchy and igniting confusion by provoking the Presidential convoy and State Security whenever the Head of State goes on developmental tours in perceived UPND strongholds.

It is the same thing that HH did in Mongu where he attempted to compete with the Presidential convoy and it is also the same thing he repeated in Kaoma and then Sesheke when he turned a blind eye to his cadres who put big rocks and boulders to block the road the Presidential convoy was using, thereby endangering the life of the Head of State and putting the entire nation at great risk in the process.

The malicious irresponsibility of Hichilema, Mwiimbu and UPND is capable of plunging the whole nation into chaos. It must be condemned in the strongest terms.

3. HH IS NOT A MESSIAH FOR TONGAS AS HE CLAIMS; HIS TRIBALIST GREED GOES AGAINST THE ASPIRATIONS OF OUR NATIONALIST TONGA FOREFATHERS.

HH’s lust for power at all costs is now a disgrace to Ba Tonga. He does not represent the nationalism of our forefathers such as Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula, Mainza Chona and Elijah Haatuakali Mudenda to name a few. The UPND leader and his party’s morally deficient character does not represent the spirit of Nationalism.

HH and Mwiimbu want to make it look as if all Southerners are UPND when in fact not. The truth is that UPND in Southern Province victimise and brutalise any southerner that is not UPND. It is even much worse how they mistreat non-Southerners affiliated to other political parties in the Province. It is shameful.

HH is not the messiah of Southern province or anyone else as he claims. He is infact a liability to Southern Province. Under his instructions, UPND Members of Parliament and councillors are shunning progressive engagements with key government officials including the Head of State, and frustrating government development efforts in Southern Province.

4. FOR TWENTY YEARS MWIIMBU AS MP FOR MONZE HAS HAD NO PROBLEM DRAWING SALARY, SITTING ALLOWANCE PLUS GRATUITY FOR HIMSELF FROM GOVERNMENT, BUT APPEARS TO HAVE A BIG PROBLEM MEETING GOVERNMENT BRINGING DEVELOPMENT FOR THE POOR IN MONZE

“Honourable” Jack Mwiimbu has been Member of Parliament for Monze for twenty years (2001) yet what can he point at?

Monze Constituency is not as developed as it should be. Why?
This not because of unwillingness on the part of successive governments under MMD and PF, but because of Mwiimbu’s unwillingness to work with respective governments of the day to bring development to the people of Monze. He appears to have a misplaced belief that only a “government under a Tonga party led by HH” should bring development to Monze and Southern Province.

In the meantime, Mwiimbu has been drawing a salary and sitting allowances from parliament plus gratuity from the National Assembly since 2001. He appears to have no problems with getting a salary and gratuity from government, but appears to have a big problem with meeting government officials seeking to take development to Monze. This is typical of UPND MP’s and councillors in Southern Province.

I appeal to my fellow Southerners in Monze and across Southern Province to open their eyes.

How can HH and UPND fix anything when he and his officials are either preoccupied with frustrating Government development projects everywhere in Southern Province or busy inciting civil unrest and destroying?

“Nkondo ngu kavwumbu”

Why needlessly risk ethnic bloodshed breaking out in Monze and spreading nationwide? Just to satisfy one man’s selfish ego?

“Simweenda aumineme ayebo ulaminama” (He who blindly associates with a wayward person, will himself become wayward.

The waywardness of one man, can never be bigger than the honour of entire Tonga speaking ethnic group of Southern Province.

Former Zairean President Marshal Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga once told a Western journalist that they should never expect their kind of democracy to apply to Africa. In his words, ‘We are Bantu, we are not Europeans.’ Like his neighbour to the north, Jean-Bédel Bokassa who crowned himself emperor (ruler of kings), Mobutu was also emperor too. He never officially crowned himself, but was all that but in name.

To the East, the lovable Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere abolished chiefdoms altogether and banished his royal friend who won British support for Nyerere and helped bring fellow chiefs into TANU party. In Zambia, Dr Kenneth Kaunda was quick to emasculate the 1964 Barotseland Agreement within 4 years of independence. Granted he maintained chiefdoms as they were before independence but, the Presidency took pre-eminence. It is probable that KK would have gone the Nyerere way had he not had roots in the land of the Maravi.

Colonialism fractured the institutions of governance in Africa. We were loyal to royalty until the Colonisers came. We became subjects of other powers across the oceans. After independence, our ‘elected’ leaders were simply substituted into the royal rulers they replaced. It is now more than 50 years after independence and most Africans treat their Presidents as kings or chiefs. It is unheard of for people in older republics to prostrate themselves before an elected representative as we do in Africa.

Mobutu in Zaire did exactly what king Leopold had done. He acquired Zaire as his personal property and treated its central bank as his own private bank. Mobutu’s plunder of his country’s wealth was unprecedented. He got away with it for years because of his friendship with the United States and the CIA. The western media were culled into a paralysed silence.

In Zambia, Frederick Chiluba in his own small way, imitated his relative by using a State account to deposit his money, money which was also dubiously acquired. When insulted by citizens, Chiluba replied, ‘A king doesn’t insult his subjects.’ With this, he put himself into the shoes of a king. This is where we are. We have not mastered the art of democracy. We are Bantu, as Mobutu said. We bow in servile fearfulness before the Excellency. To us Africans, he is the same as His Majesty. It is said that kings have a divine right to rule and so we have applied this to our elected representatives. It is not the ballot box that decides who rules, it is God. If there is rigging, we blasphemously attribute the result to God.

I have made generalisations here, but I will end with two examples that do not fit the mould- South Africa and Botswana. South Africa had a long transition from colonialism to majority rule. Can you imagine if we had a man as gigantic as Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela as our President. We would never have allowed him to step down after only one term. We would flay our backs and offer our skins for him to walk on where there is no tarmac. But, that did not happen in South Africa. Revered, yes he was, but they treated him as a mere man, and upon his insistence too, notwithstanding.

In Botswana, the first President abdicated the throne and refused to be king nor be treated as one. Sir Seretse Goitsebeng Maphiri Khama was just President and nothing more. In free and fair elections, he was re elected three times as he led his desert country to prosperity year on year. At one time, even feeding Zambia with beef! The onus to prevent CULT STATUS lies heavily on the man who is in charge. Julius Caesar in William Shakespeare’s tragedy by the same title says, ‘These couchings and these lowly courtesies might fire the blood of ordinary men and turn preordinance and first decree into the law of children.’ Indeed, ordinary men get excited by the flatteries and kneeling of people before them so that they abrogate the laws of democracy as a result. Let every man never forget that he is a mere mortal. The apostle Paul asks, ‘Who then is Paul… but a servant’ (1 Corinthians 3:5).