President, Rupiah Banda, has pledged more commitment towards addressing economic challenges confronting the nation.

President Banda said the people should expect more commitment from him following a fruitful working holiday which ends this Thursday.

The President told ZANIS in an exclusive interview in Mfuwe that he felt even stronger and refreshed having taken the working holiday, which afforded him an opportunity to reflect on serious national issues.

He said he was happy that the holiday provided him a chance to meet his family and other matters before he could return to Lusaka to continue working hard on programmes of national importance.

“I am feeling stronger and refreshed having taken this holiday therefore the people of Zambia should now expect more and more commitment from me and my administration,” President Banda said.

“During the holiday I had the chance to meet my family, which I love so much, and of course we had time to sit and discuss issues,” He added.

President Banda used the time during the holiday to take physical exercises, which included every morning walking safari in the South Luangwa National Park and held working meetings with Principal Private Secretary, Austin Sichinga, Legal Advisor Joseph Jalasi and Economic Advisor Dr Chembe.

During the holiday, President Banda met Ambassador Li Qiangmin and Kunda Chiefs among them senior Chief Nsefu, Chiefs Jumbe, Mnkhanya, Malama, Msoro and Kakumbi.

Bank of Zambia former governor Jacob Mwanza and UNZA former Chancellor Robert Serpell all called on the President during his sats at Chichele Lodge in Mfuwe.

“It was a holiday, but as you saw for yourself I continued working even during the holiday,” he said.

South Luangwa National Park’s Chichele Lodge has been preferred holiday destination for Presidents. Presidents Kenneth Kaunda and late Mwanawasa are notable among those that featured prominently at the lodge during their respective reigns.

Mr Banda said he would use his vast political experience to promote democracy by allowing people to enjoy the right of expression, but emphasized that the right would be not allowed to damage national peace and interest.

“I am sure a lot of people would wonder why I don’t respond to many of the insults and statements from some section of society, its because my past service in political administration during the first republic gave me vast experience to handle these issues,” he said.

“I went through the necessary experience that gives the wisdom to allow every Zambian to have a say on some issues,” He added.

He called on Zambians to exercise a culture of discipline and condemn insults as they comment on issues of national interest.

President Banda said Zambia was capable of achieving the needed economic development like other countries provided the people became more hardworking and disciplined.

He called unity of purpose among the people as the country works hard to address various issues affecting various sectors of the economy.

Mr Banda said he was determined to leave behind a legacy of discipline and hard work.

He challenged the media to take a leading role in promoting a culture of discipline by discouraging politics of insults even in the wake of serious debates.

The President is confident that the ongoing constitutional making process, through the National Constitutional Conference, NCC, would be complete in good time before the next elections.

ZANIS/ENDS/SJK/MM

Southern Province Minister, Daniel Munkombwe has threatened to camp in Ndeke township in Mazabuka where Cholera has broken out if the Municipal Council does not collect the mountains of garbage that have blocked the flow of water in the drainages.

He said Government is concerned with the Cholera situation in Mazabuka and wondered why the equipment donated to the council such as the light trucks donated for the Keep Mazabuka Clean Campaign where not used to collect garbage in the townships.

Mr Munkombwe said he is ready to stay in a tent and share the problems the Ndeke community was going through as a protest to the council’s failure to collect garbage and provide safe drinking water for the residents.

The highly charged Minister who toured Ndeke township was disappointed to learn that the council had failed to collect the heaps of garbage that has led to an outbreak of Cholera in the township.

Mr Munkombwe has directed Town Clerk, Ekan Chingangu to find a solution to what he termed as an ” I don’t care attitude” by some directors at the local authority.

Mr Munkombwe who was made to wait for close to an hour had to abort his official meeting at Mazabuka District Commissioner’s office after it became evident that management was playing hide and seek games.

The minister instead directed District Commissioner, Tyson Hamaamba and  Provincial deputy Permanent Secretary  to accompany him to the council offices and find out why they did not want to meet him.

However as the Minister walked to his official vehicle, Town Clerk Ekan Chingangu was seen talking to a head of department but upon seeing the minister, he immediately informed him that his director of engineering, Presto Chonde had just driven in.

Minister Munkombwe ignored Mr Chingangu and ordered that the meeting be held at the council offices.

Mr Munkombwe reminded the council that it was only him who could protect the council in the province adding that, had he invited Local Government Minister, the council could have been dissolved.

Speaking earlier, Mazabuka Central Ward Councillor, Lloyd Buumba informed the minister that his efforts to advise the council to remove the garbage had fallen deaf ears.

However Town Clerk, Ekan Chingangu assured the minister that all blocked drains would be unblocked.

Mr Chingangu said the council is geared to remove refuse in the drainages as evidenced by the mobilisation of graders, Front end loaders and other equipment.
ZANIS /HC/Ends/MM

Opposition Patriotic Front (PF) Kabwata Member of Parliament Given Lubinda says the 16 renegade PF members of parliament ceased to be members when they stopped subscribing to the party.

Mr Lubinda, who is also the Party’s Spokesperson, said ‘the rebel MPs’ have no basis to continue representing the party as they don’t agree with the P.F’s policies.

Mr. Lubinda cautioned Zambians to stop using political positions as a way of personal benefit but rather of service.

He said the expelled MP’s should stop claiming to be PF members but should form their own party, instead.

Mr. Lubinda further said some of the rebel MPs he named have not visited their constituencies saying as a result they does not know problems their electorate were facing.

He said it was time these former MPs left the PF so that the party can focus on working on projects which are meant to benefit the people of this country.

He said this in an interview with ZANIS in Lusaka today.

Mr. Lubinda pointed out that the high court ruling was momentous adding that the renegade MPs should leave PF party alone so that new people can take over their positions and contribute with developmental issues.

Meanwhile Mr Lubinda has castigated members of the NCC for spending a lot of money on enriching themselves without considering others.

He challenged members of the NCC to work towards helping the majority Zambians living in abject poverty instead of lining their pockets.

He said given a chance he would have better represented people of his constituency because he is involved in a project called the grass is singing which involves a lot of people in the community.

Mr Lubinda pointed out that he spends more than K100 million to organize meetings and helping the needy in society saying he stands a better chance to represent the poor at the NCC.

ZANIS/VP/ENDS/MM

The Immigration Department has warned that it would not allow any Zambian to travel outside the country using old passports after February next year.

Immigration Department Public Relations Officer, Mulako Mbangweta said Zambians should now start obtaining new passports, stressing that the department would not be lenient on anyone attempting to use the old passport copy.

Ms. Mbagweta told ZANIS in Lusaka today that her department would ensure that old passport copies were replaced with the new electronic copies which government introduced this year.

And the Immigration Department has arrested two British nationals for abrogating the immigration and deportation act.

Ms. Mbagweta identified the duo as Rodgers Maximillian 52, and Morgan Stanley 55, an engineer by profession and former Lumwana Mine employee all of British origin.

She explained that, Maximillian was arrested for overstaying in the country while Stanley was arrested for giving false information to an immigration officer in order to obtain a temporary permit.

Ms. Mbangweta added that Stanley tried to obtain a temporary permit by purporting that he was doing business with a certain named company in Zambia when in fact not.

Stanley is currently detained at Kansenshi Police Station in Ndola and would appear in court tomorrow.

Maximillian appeared in court this morning but he is scheduled to re-appear in court for facts on 2nd January, 2009.

Ms. Mbangweta has also disclosed that the department last week arrested 18 Zimbabwean nationals in Livingstone for illegally entering and staying in the country.

The Zimbabweans have since been removed from Zambia to their country of origin.

In a related development, two Malian nationals, who overstayed in Zambia, were yesterday removed from Zambia to their country of origin.

She said the Malian Association in Zambia managed to secure the duo air tickets to their country of origin.

Ms. Mbagweta has since appealed to embassies, high commissions and associations in Zambia to ensure that they contacted the immigration in order to exonerate their nationals who were currently detained to facilitate their transport to their countries of origin.

ZANIS/CM/KSH/END

By Mingeli Palata
A few days ago, I had the privilege of escorting a friend of mine to Kanyama compound, not so far away from the City center. The visit was an eye opener. As I navigated through the pot holes, ‘road dams’, I saw the poor infrastructures people call houses and kept on asking myself whether its life that is not fair or there is some element of irresponsibility in this sad state of affairs.

To say the least, Kanyama is not only an unplanned settlement but a breeding ground for poverty, failure and cholera. I couldn’t help but to think of the children at the clinic and schools. I kept on asking ‘where the MP for the area is?’ My colleague was quick to remind me that the MP has no capacity to bring development to a constituency what so ever, only the government has the power to bring about meaningful development.

But wait a minute, what about this word local government? Since that term has some sort of relation to ‘Government’, why can’t they do something about this? So I spent quite some time thinking of the ‘solution’ like my Asian based PR friend whose name must-not-be-mentioned-at-all-costs would put it.

The solution is quite simple actually; it lies in something called systems and policy. You may have come across this awfully long word, ‘Decentralization’. My enormously huge Webters’ lexicon tells me it has something to with delegating management control to specific organs, in this case it will mean allowing individual local councils to run the affairs of their respective territories with little interference from central government.

Government has an unnecessarily huge structure that creates a lot negative bureaucracy and is predisposed to abuse by selfish politicians. There are too many truths to this. For starters, simple common sense will tell you that a developmental paper can take years through the paper trail, approval processes, and committee briefings so much such that by the time it reaches the operational stage, its either there is a recession or there is an election – just like that a plan meets its death.

A centralized local government does not ensure checks and balances, and breeds corruption. Because the system is too big and a simple thing like putting drainage needs the consent of the minister,if not the President, the PS, the town clerk, council of counselors and lord know who else- its hard to have people accountable for their assigned deliverables.

There is no one to point a finger therefore the performance of our counselors and MPs cannot be effectively evaluated instead they will all throw the blame on central government.

The system is also prone to corruption; the Auditor Generals’ report is my witness. Notice how many millions of Kwachas get lost in the ‘paper trail’. Every now and then we hear plot squabbles; counselors or party cadres selling plots and in the long run messing up the good plans made by our civil engineers. Now because the system is so huge, this cannot be investigated, it’s left unchecked and consequently our city is in a mess, no roads, shanty compounds, the list is dreadful.

I propose that we review the system of governance to ensure that the local government is given full administrative authority to direct development and enforce sanity in our various locations. This system should ensure that the council collects revenue in form of taxes and levy’s from community households and businesses, and use it to effectively usher in meaningful change in the way communities are governed. Under this new system the responsibilities of the town clerk and the Mayor should be reviewed to ensure that both offices are relevant to society, as opposed to reducing the Mayor to wearing ‘bling’ and attending fundraising dinner dances.

Lets do what so ever is required to legislate this ‘hands-on’ system of governance which by the way is practiced by affluent countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States of America.You will find that in the US for instance, individual states even go to the extent of making laws that are specific that particular state. I am of the view that this system is best suited to actualize real and progressive change in our lives and will bring Government closer to the people.

Former first lady, Maureen Mwanawasa, has noted with sadness the shortage of maize in the country and the escalating prices of the commodity despite the good agricultural programmes that government has put in place.

Mrs. Mwanawasa also expressed sadness that Zambia was experiencing these problems when the country has abundant natural and human resources.

She said although Zambia has many solutions to these problems, it was failing to meet them because of the inadequate agricultural policies that are currently in place.

Mrs. Mwanawasa, who is also the chairperson of the Maureen Mwanawasa Community Initiative (MMCI), was speaking in Lusaka today at the celebration of Magaba Women Cooperative farmer’s day.

She said there is need for the government to make laws that will help the country come up with both short and long term measures to deal with these problems.

She said as a solution to the current problems, government should equip Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ) with new machinery and also plan for the establishment of the new fertilizer plant to help revamp the agricultural sector.

She also urged government to seriously consider early planning and sourcing of fertilizer to support the agricultural sector, adding that late imports of fertilizer and farming inputs was costly.

She also urged government to subside the farmers to ensure that the country has cheap and affordable prices of food.

The former first lady said subsides should be done all year round to allow farmers diversify their agriculture activities using affordable inputs.

Mrs. Mwanawasa also appealed to government to increase the allocation of funds to the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to enable it to have sufficient maize for consumption.

She also said there is need to revamp the growing of winter maize as a buffer to the unforeseen shortage of maize, adding that this will enable the country be a food basket and will export the maize when it has surplus.

She however called on all Zambians to work hard to ensure that the country is again turned into the food basket.

Meanwhile, Magaba Women’s Cooperative chairperson, Laima Ndhlovu, commended government for reducing the price of maize and fuel despite the many challenges the country is going through.

Ms. Ndhlovu said despite the prevailing global economic problems, government has reduced the price of maize and fuel for the benefit of all Zambians.

She urged government not to listen to critiques but instead advice them to offer constructive ideas.

Ms. Ndhlovu has also said government should provide small scale farmers with all required inputs in order to promote food security.

She said government should therefore extend the price reductions on all farming inputs in order for this to be realized.

ZANIS