The People of Milanzi have been receiving free bags of mealie meal and other food substances in an effort by the MMD to win their votes.United Party for National Development (UPND) has therefore accused the ruling MMD of vote buying in a bid to win the forthcoming Milanzi by election set for 26th June this year.

UPND Party President Hakainde Hichilema says the his party has received reports that the MMD is allegedly engaging in electoral malpractices by distributing mealie meal and other food stuffs in exchange for votes.

Speaking during a media briefing at the party headquarters in Lusaka today, Mr. Hichilema charged that the ruling party has taken advantage of the high poverty levels among people in Milanzi to extort votes in a bid to win the election.

He added that the poverty is being deliberately being perpetuated by the MMD due to the government’s poor agriculture policy.

Mr. Hichilema wondered why the government is allegedly spending a lot of resources during the election period when civil servants and UNZA students are demanding for improved salaries and meal allowances respectively.

And the UPND President says his party has welcomed the recent reconciliation between Patriotic Front President Michael Sata and President Mwanawasa.

Mr. Hichilema said the reconciliation which has been received with mixed feeling is in line with the party’s position to promote issue based politics.

He however said that the party will not be further dragged into debating over the reconciliation issue which he described as a dead issue.

Mr. Hichilema has also challenged Information and Broadcasting Services Minister and Defense Minister George Mpombo to stop defending the reconciliation between Mr. Sata and Dr. Mwanawasa.

He said the two Ministers should instead answer to queries from the recent Auditor General’s report were misapplication of funds have been reported in some government departments and other challenges such as the rising food prices among others.

Mr. Hichilema has also called on Zambians to unite under the party’s theme dubbed unity of purpose in order to achieve economic and social independence.

He said disclosed that the party leadership has so far embarked on touring different parts of the country to promote and strengthen the party.

Meanwhile former MMD Member of Parliament for Liuwa constituency Western Province Nabiwa Imekendu has resigned from the ruling party to join the UPND.

Mr. Imekendu said he has resigned to join the opposition UPND with over 1000 former MMD party members in the province including former Kalabo United Liberal Party district deputy chairperson for elections Captain Lawrence Nyambe.

Mr. Imekendu who also presented hundreds of MMD membership cards believed to have been surrendered by former MMD and ULP members said the number of cards surrendered is evidence of people’s diminishing confidence in the ruling party in the province.

And Captain Nyambe said he had decided to come back to the UPND from the splinter ULP because he has now realized that Party President Hakainde Hichilema has a heart for poor and marginalized Zambians.

United Nations Fund for Population (UNFPA) country representative, Deji Popoola, has challenged institutions implementing the sixth country programme to translate their plans into action that would improve the quality of life in rural areas.

Addressing participants attending a four-day workshop on behaviour change communication strategy at Pilgrim Motel in Kabwe today, Dr. Popoola praised the participants for developing quality plans with real issues affecting girls and women in the community.

However, Dr Popoola said the good plans from the workshop should not end up on paper but be translated into action that would improve the quality of life for many girls and women.

He said he has been saddened by the rate of school drop outs among girls, high incidences of teenage pregnancies and socio-cultural practices that expose young girls and women to HIV/AIDS.

He expressed sadness at the number of girl children dropping out of school in Northwestern province, which has the worst number of girl-child school dropouts due to teenage pregnancies and bad cultural practices.

“I was recently in Northwestern province where I found at one school 29 girls had dropped out in a single term due to pregnancy.

“On my way I also witnessed at a camp where a young girl in grade three, was being initiated and that night she was supposed to have sex with an elderly man. There are three things that were going to happen to her, either she was going to get pregnant, get HIV/AIDS or get pregnant and HIV at the same time,” Dr Popoola said.

Dr Popoola however expressed happiness that these were exactly the issues that the participants to the workshop were discussing and developing a behaviour change communication strategy.

He threatened to withhold money for workshops in future if the strategies being developed for behaviour change were not followed up by action that would make a difference in the lives of women and girls, especially in rural areas.

The workshop has drawn participants from Luapula and Northwestern provinces where UNFPA and the government of Zambia are implementing a population and development programme, with focus on improving the quality of life among women and girls.

And speaking at the same occasion, Zambia News and Information Services (ZANIS) Assistant Director for Research and Public Relations, Francis Banda, assured the UNFPA representative that the behaviour change communication strategy being developed would be translated into action.

Mr. Banda said, after the workshop tomorrow, a ZANIS team would leaving for Luapula province where it would train drama groups that would implement communication plans in communities for behaviour change.

He said a comprehensive plan would also use other communication tactics that would reinforce interventions to better the lives of women and girls in the country.

ZANIS/SNK/ID/KSH/ENDS

Former Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano is among 40 prominent African personalities who have signed an open letter calling for an end to the current political violence in Zimbabwe, and for a free and fair second round of that country’s presidential election.

The letter was published as a full page advertisement on Friday in several publications including the Financial Times of London and Business Day of South Africa.

According to the letter signatories were deeply troubled by the current reports of intimidation, harassment and violence and that it was vital that the appropriate conditions are created so that the Presidential run-off is conducted in a peaceful, free and fair manner. ”Only then can the political parties conduct their election campaigning in a way that enables the citizens to express freely their political will”.

The signatories call, not only for an immediate end to violence, but for the restoration of full access for humanitarian aid agencies. The regime of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has shut down the operations of international NGOs, even though an estimated four million Zimbabweans (almost a third of the entire population) are in need of food aid.

It is feared that, by concentrating distribution of food aid in its own hands, the regime plans to use food as a weapon against opposition voters.

The Mozambican State Agency AIM reports that the letter also calls for an adequate number of independent electoral observers, both during the election process and to verify the results but Mugabe’s government has banned most independent organisations, including the Commonwealth, the Carter Centre and even the SADC (Southern African Development Community) Parliamentary Forum, from observing the elections.

The letter states that Zimbabweans fought for liberation in order to be able to determine their own future. Great sacrifices were made during the liberation struggle. To live up to the aspirations of those who sacrificed, it is vital that nothing is done to deny the legitimate expression of the will of the people of Zimbabwe. This is a clear rejection of the regime’s claim that only the ruling ZANU-PF can claim the mantle of the liberation struggle and represent the will of the people.

Chissano’s signing of this letter is of considerable significance, since in the past he has been very close to Mugabe (and was Mugabe’s best man at his marriage to his second wife, Grace. Chissano has been most reluctant to criticise Mugabe, and the fact that he put his name to this letter shows that there are very few figures of any stature left on the international stage who are prepared to support Mugabe’s current behaviour.

A second Mozambican signatory is Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, and widow of Mozambique’s first President, Samora Machel. Without Machel’s commitment to the Zimbabwean liberation struggle, allowing ZANU to operate from Mozambican soil, it is rather unlikely that Mugabe would ever have attained power.

Other signatories to the letter include the two former United Nations General Secretaries from Africa, Kofi Annan and Boutros Ghali, and Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Wangari Maathai of Kenya.

17 former heads of state and government signed the letter – several of them from SADC and thus well known to Mugabe. They include former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, two former Tanzanian Presidents, Ali Hassan Mwinyi and Benjamin Mkapa, and two former Botswana Presidents, Quett Masire and Festus Mogae,

Signatories from the arts include world-renowned Senegalese musician Youssou N’dour. The man who is arguably the most powerful trade unionist in Africa, Zwelinzima Vavi, the General Secretary of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (COSATU) also signed the letter.

The letter was published on the same day that Botswana became the first SADC member to publicly condemn the crackdown against leaders of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The Botswanan Foreign Minister, Phandu Sekelemani, summoned the Zimbabwean Ambassador to Gaberone, Thomas Mandigora, to warn him that Thursday’s detention of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai while he was campaigning and the arrest of MDC general secretary Tendai Biti on treason charges were ‘unacceptable’.

”Botswana is alarmed by these arrests and detentions as they disrupt electoral activities of key players and intimidate the electorate, thus undermining the process of holding a free, fair and democratic election,’ Sekelemani said in a statement. “We are deeply disturbed by this unfolding situation of politically motivated arrests and intolerance which pose a serious threat to an outcome that reflects the will of the people of Zimbabwe”.
ZANIS/AIM/ENDS

Lusaka City Council (LCC)has embarked on an expansion of the road network to decongest the city and facilitate easy movement of motor vehicles.

In this vein, LCC Public Relations Officer Henry Kapata has appealed to container owners to remove their stuff along the roads as as more space was needed in order to enable the expansion of narrow roads.

Mr Kapata noted that narrow roads were unable to accommodate the huge influx of traffic because of an increase in the number of vehicles in the city.

To this effect, he disclosed that the Council had since stopped renewing licenses for people owning large containers for their merchandise to pave way for road expansion.

He said all those whose licences were still valid for owning containers would not have them renewed.

Mr. Kapata told ZANIS in an interview in Lusaka today.

He said the city needed a better road network spacious enough to facilitate easy movement of vehicles adding that this would bring sanity to the city because there would be less congestion.

In another development, Mr. Kapata has called on residents of Lusaka’s Kalingalinga township to remain calm as robots at Chiparamba junction will soon be operational.

He confirmed that the Council has since received complaints from the residents who expressed concern that the robots were too fast as they only 30 seconds were elapsing for vehicles to pass instead of the standard two minutes.

However, Mr. Kapata defended the way the robots operated saying they were using solar power and the situation would normalise in the course of this week.

And Lusaka City Council says it will not leave any stone unturned in ensuring that those who were defying the smoking ban and vending offence are brought to book.

Council Public Relations Officer Henry Kapata will take strigent measures to mete out punishment on perpetrators of public offences.

Mr Kapata told ZANIS in a telephone interview in Lusaka today that street vendors will be fined K450 000 or in default six months simple imprisonment while defiant public smokers will pay K250 000 or in default to face a sentence of not less than two years.

says it is thankful to government for spending colossal sums of money to rehabilitate the city council’s fast truck court to control vending and public smoking among other public offences.

He explained that public places will bear notices reminding people against smoking, urinating and spitting in public as this will attract punishment.

Mr Kapata said smoking in places like stadia caused pollution resulting in health problems hence the need to control the nuisance.

He further paid tribute to central Government for spending colossal sums of money towards the rehabilitation of the Council’s fast track court which would be used to dispense cases on street vending and public smoking among other public offences.

He disclosed that a magistrate will be seconded to the court and once operational these cases will be looked at.

The LCC Public Relations Officer said the developments taking place were in line with Government’s efforts in making the country clean and healthy.

At the moment, he observed that it was very difficult for the local authority to control vendors in the absence of a court.

Turning to Lusaka residents, Mr Kapata urged them to be vigilant and report anyone found committing public offences saying the Council was currently understaffed hence it was not possible to easily capture such offences.

ZANIS/ENDS/VP/CLM

Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Sarah Sayifwanda has disclosed that Government has slashed the proposed K58 billion recapitalisation budget by Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia (NCZ)to K8 billion.

And Government has disclosed that it would start distributing fertiliser for the 2008/09 farming season to small scale farmers by July and has invited private companies to bid for the supply of fertiliser and that NCZ was also free to apply.

Speaking when Mrs. Sayifwanda addressed NCZ management and Union officials in the company boardroom yesterday (Friday),the Minister disclosed that the move was made because most of the items on the budget were irrelevant.

The Minister also disclosed that she had called NCZ Chief Executive officer Richard Soko in the presence of Minisiter of Finance and National Planning Ng’andu Magande so that he could explain how the K58 billion meant for recapitalisation adding that he had to convince Government on expenditure for the budget to be approved.

She said this was done because Government was trying to avoid another misapproriation like the incident regarding the K24 billion which was given to the company between 2000 and 2003.

She observed that Government has been spoon feeding NCZ for a long time now and that it was now up to the company this time around to seek other sources of revenue for it to become self reliant.

But the Minister assured that it still cared for NCZ and was doing everything possible to address problems affecting the company and maintained that Government will not privatise NCZ because it played a very important role in the agriculture sector.

She called on workers to be patient as Cabinet was still reviewing the operations of NCZ in order to chart the way forward.

Government’s intention, the Minister stated was to start distributing fertiliser for the 2008/09 fertiliser farming season to small scale farmers by July hence it has invited private companies to bid for the supply of fertilizer and NCZ is also free to apply.

And the Minister has advised the National Union of Comemrcial and Industrial Workers at Nitrogen Chemicals of Zambia to use her office when expressing their grievances regarding the situation at the company instead of them taking the law into their own hands.

Ms Sayifwanda said it was wrong for the NUCIW to write directly to State House asking the Republican President Dr. Levy Mwanawasa to address the plight of the workers at NCZ when her ministry had not failed to do so.

She noted that it was not right to by pass her office when the President had entrusted her with all the powers to run the ministry of agriculture and advised that any future correspondence over the company should be addressed to her office for speedy resolution of problems.

But speaking earlier at the same meeting, NUCIW National President Seth Paradza told the minister that the union had decided to write to the Republican President Dr. Levy Mwanawasa because in 2001 he promised that he will be helping NCZ when need arose.

He warned that workers would soon start holding peaceful demonstrations and called on the President’s intervention in the problems that had dogged NCZ.

ZANIS/ENDS/BS/SC/CLM