Vice President Inonge Wina has reiterated that the Anti-Corruption Commission is autonomous and does not receive any instructions from anyone.

Speaking in Parliament yesterday when winding up the debate to support the 2020 budget to the Anti-Corruption Corruption, Mrs. Wina said that ACC has the mandate to prosecute people both in the public and private sectors.

And the Anti – Corruption Commission (ACC) has instituted investigations into the leasing out of Chipata Stadium to the Vincent Mwale foundation by the Chipata City Council.

And the Commission is also investing the awarding of tenders for road works in Eastern Province by the Ministry of Local Government.

The roads were allegedly awarded to several companies without proper tender procedures.

ACC Corporate Affairs Officer, Jonathan Siame disclosed this to ZNBC News. Mr. Siame said that the commission is actively pursuing the matters.

In October Chipangali Member of Parliament Vincent Mwale confirmed that he has applied to run Old Beit Stadium in Chipata for ten years.

Mr Mwale who is also Infrastructure and Housing Minister said that the Chipata City Council advertised a ten years lease of the sports facility and his organization Vincent Mwale Foundation applied, adding that his foundation, which is a nonprofit organization wants to turn Old Beit Stadium into a state of the art sports facility.

Mr. Mwale said that that the project, which will gobble over four million Kwacha will be a replica of sports facilities set up by the Barca Academy in Lusaka.

Mr. Mwale said that he was confident that he will raise the money needed for the project.

Mr. Mwale said that he was confident that he will be awarded the lease because his foundation was the only bidder and wondered why people, whom he described as enemies of progress were being negative about his intention to turn Old Beit Stadium into an international sports facility.

Mr. Mwale said that the facility, which is expected to be opened to members of the public once completed, will house pitches for an 11 aside, 7 aside and 3 pitches for 5 aside while also accommodating basket and netball courts.

Chipata City Council has been under pressure to clarify reports that Old Beit Stadium had been sold to the Chipangali lawmaker when it is a public facility.

The Luangwa Establishment has backed calls for mining to proceed in the Lower Zambezi National Park.

Establishment Chairperson Joseph Felemenga said the people of Luangwa feel it is justified to go ahead with mining in the area because of animal-human conflict as people are frequently attacked and killed by elephants and crocodiles as well as the high poverty levels.

Addressing the media in Lusaka, Mr Felemanga said the Luangwa Establishment feels that when Mwembeshi Resources is allowed to go ahead and start copper mining in the Lower Zambezi National Park through its Kangaluwi project, poverty levels and wild animals’ attacks on people will also reduce.

Mr. Felemenga said the people against mining in the area are ignorant about the mineral resource in the area.

He has insisted that mining will have no affect on the wildlife as mining will be undertaken 50 kilometres away from the game reserves.

Mr Felemanga who was flanked by other members of the Luangwa Establishment have since asked the Zambia Environmental Management Agency who rejected mining in the area to go ahead and provide relevant documentation to allow the Kangaluwi Copper Mining Project to go ahead in respect of the high court ruling for mining to go ahead recently.

Meanwhile, two traditional leaders in Luangwa district of Lusaka Province have insisted that they want mining to continue in Lower Zambezi National Park.

The two Chiefs Namely Senior Chief Mbuluma of the Nsenga-Luzi people and Chief Mphunka of the Chikunda speaking people both of Luangwa district are of the view that mining in the area if allowed to continue will bring economic development.

The two traditional leaders have however challenged government to state its position on the matter as they feel that the Ministers are not being sincere.

The duo said this on Thursday when Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo held a meeting with them at the Luangwa district administration.

And responding to the traditional leaders, Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo has assured the two traditional leaders that he will engage the Minister of Mines and Minister of Tourism for a further discussion on the matter.

The full bench of the Constitutional Court has this morning condemned the physical attack of former National Dialogue Forum Spokesperson Isaac Mwanza by United National Development Party (UPND) members and has called on Zambia Police to arrest perpetrators.

Zambia’s Attorney General Likando Kalaluka addressed the Court on the attacks by the UPND members on his potential witness, shortly after he had finished discussing with him within the court premises.

In raising the matter, the Attorney General linked the attack to a Facebook posting by one of the lawyers and former LAZ President, Linda Kasonde, in which she implored the public to fill the courtroom to offer solidarity to their case. However, he made it clear that he was not in any way suggesting that Ms Linda Kasonde sent cadres to attack persons with different views.

In response, Ms. Kasonde said she was saddened with the attacks on persons by suspected UPND members but that it would not be right to link her to the attacks.

The Court thereafter warned UPND cadres to never commit the violence against any persons within the precincts on the Court Buildings and has called on law enforcers to act and bring the culprits to book. The Court has threatened to stop any member of the public from attending trial if the behaviour is continued.

Mr Mwanza was attacked yesterday by UPND members who were in the company of UPND senior leader Sylvia Masebo on the basis that he has been supporting Government.

Meanwhile, the Court has heard the testimony of former NGOCC Board Chairperson Sarah Longwe who has told the court that the current Constitution enacted in 2016 and the proposed Bill to amend the Constitution were not people-driven as no referendum was conducted to adopt the amendments.

Ms. Longwe said Government did not consult any member of the public on proposed amendments of the Constitution. She argued that Government must always consult the people whenever amendments need to be made to the Constitution. She however struggled to answer questions on whether the call by the Ministry of Justice to the public to make submissions amounted to consultations.

President Edgar Lungu says he is committed to ensuring that all the 10 provinces in Zambia receive meaningful development.

ZANIS reports that the Head of State said this in Kalomo today, when he paid a courtesy call on Chiefs Chikanta, Sipatunyana, Mweemba, Nyawa, Simwatachela, Mukobela, Sekute and Siachitema.

President Lungu was in the area to commission the 247kilometres Kalomo-Dundumwezi-Ngoma-Itezhi tezhi Road.

The president has told the chiefs that government is keen to building a prosperous country as enshrined in the vision 2030 and the Seventh National Development Plan(7NDP).

He said he is aware that Southern Province has not been spared by the adverse effects of climate change.

President Lungu said the road brings numerous benefits for the communities living within the Kafue River basin.

He said for the farmers, the road has eased access to inputs, and markets for their crops and livestock.

Meanwhile, Chief Sipatunyana, who spoke on behalf of other chiefs, asked the president to speed up the construction of the mothers’ shelters at the various health centres in the district.

Chief Sipatunyana further requested President Lungu to assist the health centres with the provision of gensets in order to ease health operations.

In response, Minister of National Development Planning, Alexander Chiteme, informed the chiefs that government had already procured gensets, which will soon be installed.

Mr Chiteme also assured the chiefs that construction of mothers’ shelters is in the pipeline and that funds are available.

President Lungu was in Southern province to check on developmental projects.

Bespoke fashion designer Kabaso Nkandu of the trending fashion label Nkanda Yatu showcased his designs on the Windhoek Fashion Week runway on the 9^th of November 2019 in the sunny city of Windhoek. This debut made Nkanda Yatu the first Zambian fashion designer to participate in the event with the most sought-after runway in Namibia.

In its fourth year running, Windhoek Fashion Week has proven to be a valuable platform for African fashion designers. “The Windhoek Fashion Week is a platform that was created to bring opportunity to African designers, jewelers, models and so forth” said Luis Munana, the Founder and Director of the Windhoek Fashion Week.

“It is an honour to have received an invitation to share Zambian creativity in Namibia. My team and I left the runway with so much more than an applause, we took with us many lessons and skills in international fashion and design.” stated Nkandu. Designer Kabaso Nkandu was accompanied by prominent Zambian model and Brand Ambassador of Nkanda Yatu, Christina Sakala who closed off the show in sheer elegance raising the Zambian flag even higher among a Pan-African audience of fashion enthusiasts.

Further details of the showcase can be found on the Nkanda Yathu and Windhoek Fashion Week social media pages.

Energy Minister Mathew Nkhuwa has disclosed that state owned power utility ZESCO recorded K2.8 billion losses in the 2018 financial year.

In 2016, ZESCO posted a K137 million loss while in 2017, the losses jumped to K270 million.

Mr Nkhuwa said consequently, ZESCO has recorded an unsatisfactory rate of return on assets and has faced challenges to settle debts, owing to its weakened financial position.

The Energy Minister revealed this on Wednesday during a High Level Policy Dialogue Forum with Cooperating Partners in Lusaka.

Mr Nkhuwa observed that the high cost of power purchases from independent power producers and the cost of emergency power imports for 2015 – 2016 has been the major contributor to ZESCO’s liquidity challenges.

“This has also affected our ability to attract the significant amount of funding required for the sector’s diversification and successful completion of the significant number of electricity power projects already in pipeline,” Mr Nkhuwa said.

He said government is committed to creating a platform that will remove barriers and promote effectiveness in processes relating to investment in the sector in order to spur private sector participation in power generation.

“Undeniably, a number of private sector players have expressed interest to invest in electricity projects. However, given the market structure, these developers are looking to ZESCO Limited to underpin their development as the sole off-taker,” he said.

“Regrettably, the tariffs arising from the new power generation projects are significantly above ZESCO’s average selling price, resulting in losses on the utility’s part in the order of millions of United States Dollars per year, despite the fact that domestic tariffs were increased by 75% (from an average of USc 3.3/kWh to USc 6.18/kWh in 2017) and Mining tariffs increased to an average of USc9.3/kWh.”

Mr Nkhuwa said the increment factor is such that the overall increment in revenue collections was greatly affected by the depreciation of the Zambian Kwacha against the US Dollar.

“An increment in tariff from 3.3c/kWh to 6.18c/kWh meant that the revenue collections increased by a factor of 1.9. However, with the Kwacha depreciating against the dollar from trading at 9.68 in 2017 to 11.88c/kWh. The increase reduced to a factor of 1.5c/kWh in 2018 and then 1.3 in 2019 when the Kwacha further depreciated to 13.91.”

He charged that the reality is that ZESCO’s current average tariffs are still far-fetched below the cost of production from new Independent Power Producers (IPP) whose average tariffs are approximately US 11 cents per kilowatt hour.

Koby released the video for his single “Keep Forgetting” that is off his ‘Young Legend’ Album.

The song features YellowMan, Tommy D and Slapdee. It is produced by Lord Aku and Hmac for XYZ Entertainments. The visual was shot by No ID Guru Pictel