President Levy Mwanawasa says there is immediate need to decongest prisons in the country to guarantee respect of prisoner’s human rights.

Mr. Mwanawasa said overcrowding in prisons was tantamount to abuse of human rights of inmates, noting that in some instances, prisons that were designed to accommodate 100 people were now occupied by 1000 people.

He said this at State today when he swore in Gibby Nawa, who is new Commissioner of
Prisons, taking over from Jethro Mumbuwa, who has since been retired.

He said he could not justify the prevailing situations in Zambian prisons, adding
that one of the immediate solutions was to pardon some prisoners.

“Sometime back, I asked you to recommended people that I can pardon, but up to now
you have not done that, I do not know if you want me to do that at independence. But
I would have loved that we do it much earlier,” he said.

Mr. Mwanawasa said it was important to release prisoners that have faithfully served
their sentences and create room for criminals.

He urged Mr. Nawa to carry on with what he termed as an excellent performance left
by his predecessor.

“I want prisoners to feed themselves,” he said.

GOVERNMENT has ordered Railway Systems of Zambia (RSZ), the firm running under a concession pact, to surrender management of the railway transport, President Mwanawasa has disclosed.
The President, who was speaking at a dinner in Cape Town on Wednesday night, described as ‘tragic’ the operations of RSZ.
Mr Mwanawasa said the railway transport was not performing to the expectation since it was concessioned to the RSZ.
He said RSZ had been asked to give up management so that Government could give it to serious investors who would manage the transport system to the satisfaction of the Zambians.
The President was responding to questions from potential investors who wanted to know about Zambia’s transport network.
“The management of the railway system in Zambia is ‘tragic’ for lack of a better word. We’ve asked RSZ to hand the railway network back to us so that we can look for another investor who can manage it properly,” he said.
He said the railway line which stretches from Livingstone to Chililabombwe, was better before it was concessioned to RSZ from Zambia Railways.
The President also updated the gathering on the proposed construction of the Solwezi-Chingola railway, which was expected to be connected to Angola while the Chipata-Mchinji line would connect to Malawi and then Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) line near Mpika.
“So if you’re interested in railway business, you’re welcome to Zambia and take over the running of our railway network,” he told the dinner, which included Finance and National Development Minister, Ng’andu Magande and Mundia Sikatana for Foreign Affairs.
Bank of Zambia Governor, Caleb Fundanga moderated the discussions which focused on Zambia’s investment potential in mining, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing and transport.
President Mwanawasa is in Cape Town attending the 17th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum on Africa which opened yesterday and ends today.—ZANIS

Floods have cut Zambia’s white maize output for the 2006/07 crop season to 1.36 million tonnes from 1.42 million the previous year, a fall of 4.4 percent, Agriculture Minister Ben Kapita said.

“(Zambia’s) total maize production has been established to be 1,366,158 tonnes in comparison to production of 1,424,439 tonnes achieved last year,” Kapita said in a statement on Thursday.

Kapita said floods washed away most of the maize fields in 41 of the country’s 72 districts in the 2006/07 crop season.

Kapita said, however, that Zambia had enough maize which, when added to carry-over stocks from the previous season, would adequately cater for national consumption as well as exports.

Kapita said Zambia would keep 250,000 tonnes of maize in strategic reserves and export 250,000 tonnes, adding that it had already committed 100,000 tonnes from the 2005/06 carry-over stocks for export to Zimbabwe.

“Due to favourable production experienced in the previous season, the country has a maize carry-over stock of 433,031 tonnes in comparison to last year’s maize carry-over stock of 20,259 tonnes,” Kapita said.

“The country has specifically recorded a maize surplus of 250,000 in contrast to last season’s surplus of 160,000 tonnes,” Kapita added.

Kapita explained that when maize carry-over stocks are added to maize production for 2006/2007 crop season total availability of maize for the country in the 2007/08 marketing season stood at 1,799,188 tonnes compared to 1,444,698 tonnes last season.

Kapita said Zambia achieved a maize yield rate of 1.6 tonnes per hectare in the 2006/07 crop season, representing a decrease of 13.79 percent in maize yield rate when compared to the previous season.

“This poses a critical challenge on agriculture services to help improve farm management practices so that national maize average yield rates can exceed previous records,” Kapita said, without giving specific details.

Kapita said farmers cultivated 872,812 hectares of maize in the 2006/07 season, against 784,524 previously.

He added that commercial farmers produced 287,089 tonnes of Zambia’s maize harvest representing 21.01 percent compared with the 1,079,069 produced by small-scale farmers.

The MMD in Northern Province has with immediate effect suspended acting Information and Publicity Secretary, Crispin Mulenga, for Six months for alleged gross indiscipline and violation of the party Constitution.

MMD Provincial Secretary, Sebio Mukuka, announced the suspension of Mr. Mulenga in a statement to ZANIS in Kasama today.

Mr. Mukuka explained that Mr. Mulenga failed to exculpate himself over allegations
of alarming the nation by spreading false information about the party in the province.

He said the provincial executive committee that met on Tuesday endorsed Mr. Mulenga’s suspension after establishing that he had allegedly misconducted himself  by among other things being insubordinate to senior party officials and also divulging confidential information to unauthorised people.

Mr. Mukuka has since warned Mr. Mulenga to desist from using the name of party for
his personal errands as doing so would attract further disciplinary action against
him.

Recently, Mr. Mulenga had accused some top party officials in the province of conspiring to destabilise the party.

Meanwhile the MMD has with immediate effect lifted the suspension of Provincial
Information and Publicity Secretary Muma Musonda.

MMD Provincial Vice Secretary Jairus Simunyola disclosed this to ZANIS and said Mr.
Musonda had shown remorse over his past misconduct, hence the party’s decision to
lift his suspension.

And Mr. Simunyola maintained that some MMD members were taking party affairs as a
source of employment.

He, however, apologised for his recent outburst in which he accused some MMD party
members of being poverty stricken saying he regretted issuing the statement.

ZANIS

Zambia plans to offer 25 blocks for oil and gas exploration in a bidding round for international companies in the next few weeks, the finance minister said on Thursday.

The bidding round, Zambia’s first, follows an announcement in October last year that the landlocked southern African country had discovered oil and gas reserves in the northwest of the country bordering oil-producing Angola.

“We are now preparing the newspaper advertisement to invite interested parties to bid for the exploration on 25 blocks, and in the next few weeks or so we should be tendering for this,” Ng’andu Magande told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic forum for Africa in Cape Town.

He could not say exactly when the tender would be launched.

Magande said Zambian oil officials had visited Norway to get more expertise on how to conduct the bidding round.

The discovery was made by government geologists who had also carried out soil sample analysis confirming the find.

The government would select a foreign oil firm or firms to conduct comprehensive exploration, to determine the size of the identified oil and gas reserves.

The tender may also require them to expand the scope of the study to other districts of Zambia, he added.

Zambia does not produce oil but exports refined petroleum products to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe.

Zambia currently imports its crude oil from the Middle East and refines it at the Indeni Oil Refinery, which is in the copper-rich northern region of the country.

THE Lusaka High Court has granted an order for application to register the London high court judgment in which second Republican president, Frederick Chiluba, and 19 others were found liable to conspiracy to defraud the Government of Zambia. This was in a case in which London high court Judge, Peter Smith, ordered Dr Chiluba, former Zambia Security Intelligence Services (ZSIS) director-general Xavier Chungu, Congolese businessman Raphael Soriano, former ministry of Finance permanent secretary Stella Chibanda and Access Financial Services (AFS) directors Aaron Chungu and Faustin Kabwe, among others ,to pay 85 per cent of what they allegedly misappropriated. Attorney General Mumba Malila applied to register the London high court of Justice Chancery division in the Lusaka High Court foreign judgment register yesterday. Times Judge-in-charge, Esau Chulu later allocated the matter to Judge Japhet Banda. Mr Justice Banda granted the order in chambers and further ordered that any application to set aside the registration should be within seven days from the date of order while execution on the judgment would not be issued until the expiration of seven days. “Upon hearing counsel for the applicant and upon reading the affidavit for one Mumba Malila filed herein, it is ordered that leave to register the judgment be and is hereby granted,” ordered Mr Justice Banda. And when asked if Dr Chiluba had been served with the London court ruling to surrender his Kabulonga house, his spokesperson, Emmanuel Mwamba, said the issue was now a subject of the Lusaka High Court process and the law should take its course. Mr Mwamba advised all parties to desist from making such comments, as it would be contemptuous to do so.