Former first lady, Maureen Mwanawasa, has paid glowing tribute to State house staff for the support, love and kindness they rendered to the first family in the last seven years.

Mrs. Mwanawasa said the State House staff was very committed and dedicated to duty, a situation she wished all workers in the country could have.

She said the staff made the stay of the first family easy at State House because of the cooperation, love and hard work from the workers.

She was speaking at State House during the farewell luncheon with State House staff today.

“I wish to express my deep sense of gratitude for the support, love and kindness you showed to the late President, myself and our family during our seven year we have stayed here,” she said.

Mrs. Mwanawasa, who lost her husband, President Levy Mwanawasa in August this year, said she has since moved out of State House to pave way for the incoming President, Rupiah Banda, and his family.

She explained that the State House staff had been with the first family in both bad and good times.

She said this created a strong bond between the first family and the workers.

The former First Lady also thanked spouses of the State House staff for their understanding when their husbands and wives were away on duties.

Mrs. Mwanawasa, who also apologized for any wrong doing to the workers, has since urged the State House staff to embrace the incoming President and cooperate with him because this was their duty.

And Mrs. Mwanawasa would soon launch a book entitled “The President’s Menu” whose proceeds would be channeled towards retirement benefits for kitchen staff at State House.

And Principal Private Secretary to the President, Alfred Chipoya, said parting company with the former first family would be a difficult situation to understand for State House staff.

Mr. Chipoya said Mrs. Mwanawasa, together with her late husband, always provided motherly advice, love and guidance to the members of staff, hence the first family would be remembered forever.

He also presented a gift to the former first lady as a sign of appreciation of her motherly conduct towards State House staff.

Meanwhile, Chief Analyst for Press and Public Relations at State House, David Kombe said in a vote of thanks that the State House staff was ready to work with whichever president.

Mr. Kombe said State House staff was committed to serve the nation regardless of who was in the State House.

ZANIS/ENDS/KSH/EB.

Zambia continues to face challenges of a residual caseload of Angolan refugees, Zambia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Lazarous Kapambwe has observed.

Mr. Kapambwe notes that some of the refugees are vulnerable and not self-reliant but positive strides were implemented such as the repatriation as a durable solution including local integration for such caseloads.

He says the Zambian government had audience with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to consider long term solutions to the influx of Angolan refugees.

This is according to the press statement released by the Zambian Embassy’s First Secretary to the United Nations, in charge of Press in New York, Moses Walubita, and made available to ZANIS in Lusaka today.

Mr. Kapambwe said this when he addressed the Third Committee of the 63rd Regular Session of the United Nations General Assembly on the Report of the UNHCR; question and answer session on returnees and displaced persons and humanitarian.

The Zambian Envoy said the success of the Zambian Initiative Programme should serve as a useful model for similar areas hosting refugees in the country (Zambia) but reiterated Zambia’s commitment to meeting the obligations governing the Refugee Conventions.

And Mr. Kapambwe has disclosed that Zambia welcomes the UNHCR’s Global Needs Assessment Initiative to which Zambia will be piloted along side with other eight countries.

The initiative is based on the actual needs of refugees in th field as it has helped identify critical needs of refugees such as feeding them amid looming global food crisis.

ZANIS/ENDS/KC/EB

Science and Technologhy Minister, Peter Daka, has appealed to mining companies and other private sector organisations on the Copperbelt to form synergies with training institutions under his ministry to ensure that students graduating from these colleges were relevant to the manpower needs of these companies.

Mr. Daka said Government has observed that most of the people that were being trained under the Technical Education Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training programme were getting obsolete skills which has proved to be irrelevant to the skills needed by most mining companies and the private sector.

Mr. Daka said this in Kitwe today during the official opening of a one-day National Stakeholders Consultative forum held at Edinburgh Hotel today under the theme “Unlocking Human Resource Potential to achieve Economic Growth.”

He said there is urgent need for the private sector to design programmes that would assist government provide adequate training in line with moving technology to ensure that the youths graduating from these colleges contribute to national development.

He also appealed to the private sector to offer employment to the graduates to ensure that they contribute to wealth creation.

And speaking earlier at the same function, Science and Technology Permanent Secretary, Buleti Nsemukila, said half of Zambia’s population were youths below the age of 15, which has a big base of people needing relevant skills training in order for them to become economically viable.

Dr. Semukila said the majority of Zambia’s population were young people who needed skills to enable them crate wealth and alleviate poverty.

He said there was need to train more people with different skills if the number of people working in the informal sector was to be reduced.

And in a paper titled Unlocking Human Resource Potential to achieve Economic Growth, Chairperson for the Private Sector Development Association, Yusf Dodia, called on training institutions in Zambia to redevelop the use of education infrastructure to ensure that more people acquired relevant skills for wealth creation.

Mr. Dodia observed that in Zambia, most training institutions were failing to use their facilities to train more people, hence the utilisation of these facilities for social functions such as church services, weddings and kitchen parties.

He said wealth creation was related to the quality of manpower a country has, hence the need for these training institutions to enroll more students and utilise the idle facilities.

ZAMIS/ENDS/LK/CMM/EB.

GOVERNMENT has said the performance of the agricultural sector in Eastern Province during the 2007/08 farming season has been very good compared to other regions.

Cooperatives and Marketing Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Bernard Namachila, said during the 2007/08 farming season, the province produced 267, 596 metric tonnes of maize.

Mr. Namachila also said 21, 621 tonnes of sunflower and 20,014 tonnes of groundnuts were produced during the same period in the province respectively.

He was speaking when he officiated at the launch of the National Fertilizer Support Programme (NFSP) held at Crystal Springs hotel in Chipata yesterday.

Mr. Namachila attributed the bumper harvest to the good agricultural policy introduced by government coupled with timely distribution of inputs, good rainfall and hard work by farmers.

“I am proud to say that Eastern Province has recorded a bumper harvest in a number of crops like maize, groundnuts and sunflower to name but a few,” he said.

The Permanet Secretary said the province also produced 4, 277 tons of soyabeans, 60,512 tonnes of cotton and 169 tons of tobacco.

Mr. Namachila congratulated the farmers in the province and staff from the department of agriculture for working hard, adding that the production of the crops was not a mean achievement.

He called on them to continue working hard because government regarded Eastern Province as an important agricultural production region which contributed significantly to the national food basket.

The PS noted that all the logistics for the inputs distribution exercise under FSP were in place not only in Eastern Province but countrywide.

“I expect farmers to start collecting inputs soon after this workshop in all the districts. To my officers, your role is to implement the programme according to the laid down regulations and you should avoid unnecessary problems for yourselves and government,’’ he said.

ZANIS/ENDS/SM/EB

Severe hunger is forcing Zimbabweans to cross Lake Kariba into Zambia in search food in the Namafulo, Mweeba and Kanchindu areas in Chief area in Sinazongwe District.

A local businessman Dodo Sindaza said most of the Zimbabweans are old men, women, and youths.

Mr. Sindaza said the situation was bad because the Zimbabweans were selling chickens at K3, 000 each, to enable them  buy a bag of mealie-meal. He said the hunger-striken Zimbabweans do not know much about the Zambian currency and end up selling their commodities below the market value.

One Zimbabwean Tolo Munkombwe said the hunger situation in Zimbabwe was unbearable as there was completely no food in that country. Mr. Munkombwe said all the shops were closed because there was no food in them and people have no money with which to buy commodities.

He said schools in Binga town have been closed and teachers have run away due to food shortage.Mr. Munkombwe who is from Siamwenya Village in Binga Town said people have resorted to batter system because the Zimbabwean currency has lost value.

“If you want to jump on a bus to go to any town from Binga, drivers are demanding to be paid a bag of mealie-meal which is difficult to come accross,” Mr. Munkombwe said.