Milima Prisons Officer-In Charge in Kasama, in Northern Province, David Phiri, has revealed that 485 prisoners at the prison take one meal per day due to the broken down kitchen equipment.

Mr Phiri said since the kitchen equipment broke down last year, preparation of meals for inmates has been difficult, forcing authorities to provide them with one meal in a day.

He has appealed to Government to urgently look into the plight of the prisoners who are supposed to have at least two meals per day.

Mr Phiri has also revealed that the water pumps, which supply water to the prison and the camp, are old and constantly break down and require replacement.

He lamented that with the erratic water supply the sewer system has also collapsed and requires repair.

Mr Phiri, however, said the morale of officers at the prison is high as almost all officers have been promoted to the next rank by the Prisons and Police Service Commission which visited the province in February, this year.

Meanwhile, Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, Alfridah Kansembe, assured inmates at Milima Prison that Government is committed to protect their lives by providing them with food while serving their sentences.

Mrs Kansembe said the PF Government wishes all inmates to reform and become responsible citizens when they leave Prisons.

And in responding to in mates’ questions, Deputy Commissioner for Prisons, Lloyd Chilundika, said all inmates who have trades should continue with their trades in order to participate in national development.

Mr Chilundika said Government, with help of Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission (CEEC), will provide loans to inmates who team up to form companies.

He said the loans will be paid back by individuals who commit themselves to the conditions once they left prisons.

Mr Chilundika urged the prison officers to change their attitude to work and promote food production for prisons to be self-sustaining.

He said prison officers should offer options of improving prisoners and steer them into producing their food and help even to feed the nation with surplus production.

ZANIS

The opposition UPND has adopted former Eastern Province Permanent Secretary Eularia Mwale as its candidate for the June 20 Feira parliamentary bye election.

UPND Deputy General Secretary Kuchunga Simusamba announced in Lusaka today that Mrs Mwale was picked after through consultations with the party’s local structures in Feira.

“For us we are set for the bye election. Our intelligence has shown that she is a very strong candidate and we are good to go,” Mr. Simusamba said.

And Mrs. Mwale explained that the local people had approached her to stand as MP and recommended that she stands on the UPND ticket.

“UPND is the party of hope for all Zambians. For me, UPND represents the future of this country,” she said.
Mrs. Mwale said she is confident she will scoop the seat.

The Feira constituency seat became vacant after area MP Patrick Ngoma resigned from opposition MMD to join ruling PF.
The PF is likely to adopt Mr. Ngoma to stand on the ruling party’s ticket.

A couple in Lusaka’s Matero Township has been apprehended for allegedly killing their four-year old child during a domestic fight.

It is alleged that the John Banza had a quarrel with his wife and during the quarrel he picked a metal bar and threw it at his wife, but he missed the target and it landed on the toddler who died from excessive bleeding, upon arrival at George Clinic.

The incident happened on Saturday around 23:00hours.Police said Banza, an ex-convict, had been violent since his return from jail.

“The man has been violent ever since he came back from prison and this is not the first attempt to beat the wife as he had tried to hit the woman before.

“She had to seek refuge in a nearby makeshift stall after being chased from the matrimonial house,” police sources said.

Contradicting statements were issued by eye-witnesses, mainly children of the couple and neighbours while the couple also gave police varying statements.

“We arrested the husband first after the neighbours told us that they heard a fight before they were called by the couple’s children to assist in taking the boy to the clinic. The man is saying his wife accidentally slept on the baby while in bed.

“His wife is saying she was asleep and heard a bang on the bed and found her child in a pool of blood. The two stories don’t even add up, so we arrested both and they have since been taken to Matero Police station where they are being held for murder,” the sources said.

[Times of Zambia]

The family of murdered taxi driver Vincent Chandlha, whose body was discovered in a decomposed state in Kabangwe area two weeks ago, has said they suspect that his killers are pursuing them.

The family members are now living in fear because they feel they are being trailed by a group of criminals and are seeking police protection.

They say that the four men in a minibus which almost ran over Vincent’s sister, Brenda Chalwe in strange circumstances along Addis Abba Drive last week could be the people who killed Vincent.

Vincent was hired by four middle-aged men from Manda Hill Shopping Complex the last time he was seen alive.

Shocking revelations indicated that his rib-cage was ripped open while vital organs, including his private parts, eyes and tongue were removed.

Vincent’s father Kenneth said his daughter, who is studying at Rusangu University, was almost run over by a minibus which had parked outside the university’s Lusaka campus premises 20 minutes before her daughter was almost run over.

“We suspect that the same people are hunting us down because my daughter was almost killed in very strange circumstances,” Mr Chandlha said.

Security sources on the campus said a minibus had been parked outside the premises for more than 20 minutes before the incident happened.

[Times of Zambia]

GOVERNMENT has implored investors to stop hoarding or keeping huge sums of money in their houses or work places but instead utilise the banking systems as much as possible to avoid being robbed.
Minister of Home Affairs Edgar Lungu said it has been observed that most of the investors, especially the Chinese, are being attacked by bandits because of keeping huge sums of money in their houses or at work places.

“Most of the workers the Chinese companies employ are not properly screened. The result is that they employ people they do not know, even those without national registration cards (NRCs).
“These are the people who connive with criminals, especially if they are fired unceremoniously,” Mr Lungu said.

The minister issued the statement yesterday through his Public Relations, Manager Moses Siwali, following the shooting and wounding of a Chinese couple in Ndola last Sunday at Hongji Mining Limited around 22:30 hours.

The bandits went away with US$200,000 cash and a motor vehicle valued at US$15,000.

Mr Lungu urged Investor companies to ensure that whenever they engage workers, they subject them to thorough screening in terms of checking their NRCs and police clearance through fingerprints screening unlike the hire and fire system.

He said employers should also know where their employees stay.

And Copperbelt Province Police Commissioner Mary Tembo has confirmed that officers have been deployed at Hongji Mining Limited to provide 24 hours police protection.
She said police are alert and still hunting for the armed bandits, who are still at large.

The Chinese couple has since been evacuated for medical examination.

Zambia Disability HIV/AIDS, Human Rights Programme (ZAMDAP) has challenged the Patriotic Front government to keep its promise of disclosing the report on what lead to the Gabon Air disaster in which the Zambia national football team perished in the year 1993.

ZAMDAP Programme Director Elijah Ngwale says it is surprising that upto now no report has been disclosed when all investigations on what lead to the 1993 Gabon air disaster have been complete.

Speaking in an interview with Qfm, Mr. Ngwale noted that if the report is not disclosed to the nation it will bring about suspicious that both the Zambian and the Gabonese government could be hiding something about what really caused the disaster.

Students at the Copperbelt University (CBU) in Kitwe have continued to defy managements’ decision on the ban of squatting and subletting of rooms at the campus.

CBU management at the opening of the 2013 academic calendar a week ago announced their decision to enforce the ban on squatting and subletting of rooms, which they said was aimed at safeguarding the health and safety of students.

This became a source of conflict between management and students, as the former engaged more security personnel to evict student squatters from the rooms, an operation that left a number of students sleeping in the cold for the first one week of the 2013 academic year, which resumed over two weeks ago.

But a Times check around the campus yesterday revealed the status-quo on squatting had continued despite managements non-reversal of the controversial squatting ban.

Copperbelt University Students Union (COBUSU) general secretary Levy Sakala said there was no compromise yet between management and students over the issue of squatting.

“Management has not communicated anything to indicate whether they have rescinded their decision to ban squatting and subletting of rooms but however the students have continued to squat,” Mr Sakala said.

He said save for the first week, there had been no more eviction or intimidation of students during the last week.

Mr Sakala asked CBU management to consider allowing students not interested in staying in boarding houses to continue squatting within the campus because living in campus was more convenient for them to access study facilities such as library and other as opposed to when they were in boarding houses.