Northern Province minister John Chinyanta, in a speech read for him by district administrative officer Leonard Chiti during the handover ceremony at Walamo Hall said the government was grateful for the donations.

He mentioned that bilateral relations between Zambia and Norway dated back to independence, saying that government had received massive support in education, health and agriculture sectors through NORAD.

Chinyanta said he was aware that relations between the Norwegian council and Mpulungu district council went back to 2007 and expressed happiness that the marriage was in line with the millennium development goal number eight (8) that highlighted the development of a global partnership for development both at national and international level.

He said these partnerships were envisaged to be a strategy for global poverty reduction whose objective was being implemented in the donation.

Your donation of the immunization van is a tool in the hands of the health sector because it will reinforce the reduction of infant mortality by prevention of diseases that cause death in children through effective immunization, Mr. Chinyanta said.

He advised the youths from the local youth council to put the donated minibus to proper use.

Mr. Chinyanta said youths in the country faced a lot of challenges of drug abuse, unemployment and disease, saying they must rise above those challenges and make good of their lives.

And Manager for Administration at Mpulungu district hospital Amon Phiri said his department was happy to receive the all weather immunization van, adding that the vehicle will go a long way in ensuring that the health institution provided quality services to the community.

Phiri admitted that there was a shortage of transport at the district hospital because the available vehicles were mostly being used for ambulance services.

Meanwhile, Mpulungu District has commenced a training programme of 30 spray operators in readiness for the spraying exercise against mosquitoes in over 10 000 households in the district.

The training is in line with the Indoor Residual Spray (IRS) programme and is being undertaken with support from the national malaria control centre in collaboration with the ministry of health (MOH).

The training will last for 18 days and once trained, the spray operators will be deployed to spray households in Mpulungu central and part of Isoko areas in October.

Health workers spoken to said the objective of the exercise was to reduce malaria cases in the district, adding that according to data from districts that had undertaken the exercise in the past, the IRS programme was capable of drastically reducing the cases of malaria.

And this is why we are targeting 8 000 to 10 000 peoples dwellings in Mpulungu. This number will be increased next year depending on the availability of funds, a health worker who did not want to be named said.

Mpulungu is among the 54 districts in the country where the IRS programme is being carried this year and health workers say the number will be increased to cater for all the 73 districts in the country in due course.

According to available data, malaria was the number one killer disease in Mpulungu and the disease accounted for over 50 percent of all hospitalized cases at Mpulungu district hospital and the surrounding rural health centers.

Malaria experts say the impact of the disease on the population was huge and it was great financial cost to both government and the affected individuals.

The 30 spray operators have been drafted from different areas in the district.

ZANIS

Mining prospectors in Luapula Province, northern Zambia, have forced small-scale farmers from their land at gun point, according to villagers in the region.

“We have a lot of battles going on over land; people’s right to land is being violated by manganese miners, time and again,” said Ignatius Musenge of the Zambia Land Alliance, a land rights NGO based in Mansa, the provincial capital.

Luapula Province borders the mineral-rich Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and has deposits of manganese, cobalt, citrine and copper; some reports claim there are also deposits of diamonds, uranium, gold and tin.

“We are handling about 20 complaints per week on average, and so far we have had more than 500 people evicted [since 2009] in various parts of Mansa as a result of manganese mining,” Musenge told IRIN. People forced from their land have been given no compensation or alternative land.

“They [prospectors] are chasing us from our own land,” Peter Mwila told IRIN. “Is this country just for the rich? The chief [traditional ruler] gave me a 10-hectare piece of land many years ago, where I have been farming. But early this year someone came and chased me with a gun, saying I was farming on his mining area, and I am now living with my uncle in the next village.”

President Rupiah Banda’s government has permitted exploration to gauge the extent of the province’s mineral deposits, and has allowed small-scale mining activities, but residents claim that once mineral deposits are discovered they are evicted from their land.

Lister Zimba, who was “chased from her land” in Mansa district in May 2010, told IRIN: “The only thing I have is this land, where I do my farming. So, what happens to me now? The chief gave us land; people with money got the land from us.”

Nowhere to go

“Where can we go? This is the only land we [I, my husband and three children] have lived on. We have no jobs, why should they take even the little that we have?” she said.

Mining – particularly in Copper Belt Province, northern Zambia – contributes 80 percent of the country’s foreign earnings, and since 2003 has been the main driver of its annual five percent growth rate. But the commodities boom, tempered by the 2008 global slowdown, has failed to improve the livelihoods of most of Zambia’s 12.4 million citizens.

About two-thirds of Zambians survive on less than US$1 per day, and only about 500,000 people have formal employment, but these statistics become more extreme in Luapula.

The province is one of poorest of Zambia’s nine provinces, poverty levels are an estimated 78 percent – compared to the national average of 64 percent – and only three percent of Luapula’s 775,353 people have access to formal jobs, according to the 2008 Labour Force Survey Report released in June 2010 by the Central Statistical Office.

One of the few large industries, a battery factory, closed in the 1990s and there is an expectation that large-scale mining operations could transform the province’s economic fortunes.

Chief Ndake, a member of the House of Chiefs, a body of traditional rulers, warned that pro-market policies could push poor people living on customary land into deeper poverty if they were evicted.

In Zambian law, land is held by customary tenure, and although the government has encouraged citizens to take title to their land, many are unaware of the need to do so, and the state has the authority to revoke any untitled land awarded by traditional rulers.

“The powers that we have [as traditional rulers] to give land to the people are not actually honoured; in fact, the villagers living in rural areas are termed as squatters. The millions and millions of Zambians who have lived on this land for more than two, three centuries up to now, they are squatting,” Chief Ndake told IRIN.

“It is only those who have settled on statutory land, where there are all those title deeds, that are settled permanently, and this law becomes very effective when there is an investor coming, when there is timber to be produced, when there are mineral deposits,” he said.

Kennedy Sakeni, a former parliamentarian living in Mansa, is one of the small-scale miners accused of evicting people from their customary land.

Wild allegations

“Those are just wild allegations – they want to create problems where there are no problems. Others want to eat with both hands; you compensate them today, tomorrow they come back and ask for more money,” he said.

“The truth is, I have seven mining licenses for [digging] pits in different places, and wherever there are fields of cassava [a staple food] in any of my mines, I have compensated them [local people]. In certain areas, where I am not mining just now, the people still have their cassava fields intact,” he said.

Boniface Nkata, Zambia’s deputy minister of mines, said government was concerned at the rising number of evictions. “There’s very serious tension in terms of mining activities in the district [Mansa],” he acknowledged.

“But … government cannot be blamed where someone is evicted from the land they have been occupying illegally, without valid documentation – they are squatters. Those who are driving them out are permitted to do so, because they should not come and find their minerals tampered with,” Nkata told IRIN.

“The law is very clear – even when your chief gives you land, you should obtain title deeds for it from the ministry of lands. Then, any investor will have to partner with you, or just mine outside your farm area,” he said.

“We can’t have a situation where anyone does what they think is right. As government, we can only call on all our investors to offer some form of compensation to the affected people, to ease their relocation or resettlement.”

The government intended to open the mineral wealth of the province to international investors after a two-year exploration period, “so that they can develop the province, invest in corporate social responsibility, pay tax,” Nkata said.

“These mining activities have the potential to improve the economy of Zambia significantly, and I think we should look at the bigger picture.”

[IRIN]

Government has expressed satisfaction with the road works on the T5 international road linking Mwinilunga district to Angola.

Local government and Housing Deputy Minister, Elijah Muchima, told ZANIS in an interview shortly after inspecting the road works in the area.

Mr Muchima, who is also Mwinilunga West MMD Member of Parliament, said he is pleased with the progress made so far.

Mr Muchima hoped that the road works would be completed before the onset of the rainy season.

He urged the North Western provincial administration to continue supplying the contractor with fuels on time so that the project is not delayed.

The Deputy Minister advised the contractor to consider stationing some road equipment from Jimbe border post so that road works can also commence from Jimbe.

Meanwhile Mr Muchima has implored locals leaving along the T5 international road to report any theft of fuel to the police or District Commissioner’s office.

He told locals that government has spent huge sums of money in repairing the T5 international road hence the need for the community to guard the road project jealously.

Mr Muchima warned that government would not hesitate to deal with whoever will be found selling fuel meant for the T5 international road works.

And commenting on the operations of Mwinilunga community radio station, Mr Muchima said there is need to extend the radio frequency so that the entire district is covered.

He explained that information could only reach the masses once the frequency is extended to other chiefdoms in the district.

Mr Muchima noted that currently the radio station was covering limited chiefdoms leaving out others.

He also appealed to well wishers to come to the aid of the station and assist it to improve its operations.
[ QFM ]