The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services has urged beneficiaries under the Food Security Pack (FSP) to stop resisting being weaned off from the programme when it’s time for them to graduate.

Chief Community Development Officer Nicholas Banda has said that Food Security Pack is designed to graduate beneficiaries after two years of being on the programme and are able to stand on their own.

Mr Banda said that beneficiaries should understand that once they have been supported and are able to stand on their own, they need to leave room for other vulnerable but viable members of communities to be supported and that the FSP programme can only take a limited number of beneficiaries depending on available resources and the spaces left by those that graduate.

Mr Banda said this during the monitoring of some Food Security Pack activities in selected districts of Northern Province where reports indicated that some beneficiaries resist graduating from the programme.

And Luwingu District Community Development Officer Serah Banda said that officers face a lot of resistance from beneficiaries when it’s time to wean them off from the programme.

Ms Banda said there is a need for increased sensitisation for FSP beneficiaries to understand the importance of graduating from the programme to allow more vulnerable but viable people to be supported.

And Acting Kasama District Community Development Officer Mutinta Himunza said even collecting recoveries becomes a serious challenge when beneficiaries know that they are graduating from the programme.

Ms Himunza said most beneficiaries don’t want to pay back when it is their final year to be on Food Security Pack (FSP).

He added that the public sector, on the other hand, will continue to play the role of providing the requisite infrastructure and a conducive business regulatory environment which is critical for the private sector to effectively contribute to national development.

Minister of Infrastructure, Housing Urban and Development Charles Lubasi Milupi has announced that Zambia’s housing units deficit is expected to double in the next eight years.

Eng. Milupi said the current 1.5 million housing unit’s deficit is expected to rise to three million units by 2030.

Featuring on ZNBC TV’s Sunday Interview, Mr. Milupi bemoaned the substandard of some houses, especially in remote areas.

He said there is a need to come up with standard designs of houses that can be used even in rural houses to enable more houses to have access to electricity.

“Infrastructure is key to development; you need the right type of infrastructure to ensure that business carries on unimpeded. You know the size of our country is very big with a fairly low population of 18 Million. What this entails is that we have communities all over the place, districts all over the place that need to be connected over this wide country in terms of the area,” Mr. Milupi said.

“In terms of housing you are quite right that currently we have a deficit of 1.5 million housing units and we think that by 2030 which is eight years from now this will rise to 3 million units. This is with the urban housing and peri-urban housing. That is why we have that deficit but if you look right across our country in the rural setting up in the villages and so on. The standard of some houses in certain villages are such that I think we need to expand our vision in terms of what we have to do with housing.”

“The Covid pandemic has brought out certain issues of requiring E-learning for example for pupils and students and so also on. Just imagine those who are in remote village housing which is just mud and poll and grass just thrown as a roof and so on. You cannot even if you intended to have off grid solar electricity provided to such houses so that children like that can also access e-learning. So as we expand we need to address even more than the official deficit that I have talked about. We need to come up with standard designs of houses that can be used even in rural houses so that when need be those houses have access to electricity off grid electricity and they can have the mechanism,” Mr. Milupi said.

He said the Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing Urban and Development has already started formulating affordable standard housing unit designs for both rural and urban areas.

“We have been five months in power now or in office, our country has been Independent since 1964 but there isn’t a suitable time to say maybe we need to wait so the mechanism has already started to begin to address. We have people who deal with these matters in our ministry who have already been tasked to look at certain designs in addition to standard designs for teachers housing in schools especially in remote schools, nurses housing and clinical officers housing in remote places,” Mr. Milupi said.

“The overriding desire is to come up with costs that are affordable both to the Government when we build these infrastructures and in terms of these housing units that I am talking about for villages that are affordable to villagers. We are not going to pay for those but I think it will serve us right as a country if we say you want to build a house, here is a standard design which is affordable and should be able to put it up knowing well that children that grow up in that homestead will have access to basic amenities,” he added.

On road infrastructure, Mr. Milupi reiterated that the Government will be undertaking Public Private Partnership (PPP) to construct roads in areas that are commercially viable.

He emphasized the need for the public to differentiate between commercial viability for PPP and economic viability of areas.

Mr. Milupi added that infrastructure such as roads and houses must be constructed following right pricing, right standard and right duration.

“We are talking about PPP attracting investors to come in and construct roads. This country is big. There are many roads all over the place. Districts that are not connected, right now I am getting videos for example the Samfya-Kasaba Road that is going into Chifunabuli going to pass Lubwa Mission. There is a terrible thing there, the road is cut off,” he said.

Mr. Milupi repeated that the much talked about Chipata-Vubwi /Chipata-Chadiza Road is not commercially viable saying PPP cannot work but the central Government needs to find money to improve the road.

Copperbelt-based civil society organization called Break the Silence says Zambia needs to scale up the fight against corruption because people involved in the scourge are getting more sophisticated.

Break the Silence Chief Executive Director Richard Mweetwa has charged that corruption has gotten entrenched in all spheres of the nation.

Mr. Mweetwa expressed shock that some public officers want bribes to offer services such as acquisition of school places or an appointment with a medical doctor.

He said Break the Silence was aware that some teachers in selected schools were soliciting for bribes from parents seeking school places.

Mr. Mweetwa said the fight against corruption should not be mainly focused on politicians but the private and public sectors as well.

“The fight against corruption should not only concentrate on politicians but on all governance systems both in private and public offices in all the districts of Zambia. It has come to our attention that corruption is in almost all institutions, even as low as the registry’s personnel of different institutions, human resource officers etc,” Mr. Mweetwa said.

“We have observed situations where: If you want a transfer or a pay vacancy or to be upgraded. Worst still, to be promoted you have to bribe someone to get what you want. Things should not be like that. We therefore call upon the Anti Corruption Commission, Drug Enforcement Commission, The Police, intelligence officers to be vigilant and we call on citizens to report such activities to relevant offices,” he said.

“Under the previous PF regime, promoting workers, transferring workers and retiring workers in national interest was based on tribal lines, political attachment and corruption was the order of the day. We thank the New Dawn Government for restoring professionalism and for allowing those who were fired or retired under such grounds to be reinstated. We also demand that the Civil Servants in government and in Palastatal should be restructured because a lot of incompetent people were promoted based on the above reasons like corruption, we want qualified people in their right positions without any strings attached,” Mr. Mweetwa said.

Mr. Mweetwa said citizens should help the Government fight corruption by reporting suspected corrupt practices to law enforcement agencies.

“Corruption is a cancer which is getting more sophisticated by the people involved and therefore it must be curbed. We would like to urge the citizens to help the government with the fight on corruption. We also urge the government to put up strong measures when employing people, or promoting workers, transferring them to avoid people being transferred on political or tribal grounds like we witnessed in the previous PF regime,” he said.

Mr. Mweetwa further called for the prosecution of people who were repeatedly cited in the Auditor General’s report, Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) Financial Intelligence Center (FIC) reports for misappropriating public funds.

“Break the Silence organization is proposing the following ideals to the government: Institutions and individuals cited by the Auditor General’s report, Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) Financial Intelligence Center (FIC) should be brought to book, investigated, suspended, fined and fired if found wanting. We are tired of hearing the same reports involving the same people year in year out without any action. We demand proactive and affirmative action by the government,” he said.

Mr. Mweetwa added:”We propose that the Anti Corruption Commission offices should be decentralized and should be found in all districts of this country so that citizens should be free and encouraged to report corruption cases taking place in different institutions of both public and the private sector unlike it is whereby they are only found in provincial centers or some towns like Kitwe on the Copperbelt. We demand that officers engaged in corruption should be fired to deter others from committing the same crime. We suggest that anti-corruption integrated committees be set in all institutions composed of different people of integrity to look at issues of employment, transfers, and promotions in order to avoid corruption.”

Over 1000 displaced traders, bus and taxi drivers at Masala Market in Ndola on the Copperbelt this morning staged a protest demanding the government`s intervention in the alleged sale of a piece of land at the market to a foreign national.

The aggrieved traders vandalized the said premises vowing not to allow the alleged owner to commence with construction works.

The traders do not want the said development to continue stating that they do not have anywhere to trade from following the gutting of Kapalala market.

They later stormed the Ndola District Commissioner Joseph Phiri’s office who promised to engage the council and give them a favorable response before the end of the day.

And Ndola City Council Public Relations Manager Rebecca Mushota says the local authority will counter check the documentation that the developer has.

Meanwhile, UPND Ndola District Spokesperson David Zimba who addressed the traders says the party in the district will stand and support what they want.

But when contacted, the alleged owner of the said land Aziz Adams referred all queries to his lawyer.

Meanwhile, calls to modernize Chisokone market that have in the past met resistance from marketeers have resurfaced with the Alliance for Zambia Informal Economy Association-AZIEA- urging the new dawn administration to consider resuming these plans.

AZIEA General Secretary Lameck Kashiwa has however proposed that this is done in full consultation with the marketeers to avoid the confusion and misunderstandings that occurred previously leading to the project failing to take off.

The umbrella organization for associations of informal worker organizations says marketeers and other informal sector workers were apprehensive about modernization of Chisokone as they were not consulted and only learnt that mopani copper mines had provided funding for the undertaking through the media leading to speculations that they would be displaced by foreigners.

In 2018, the then Local Government and Housing Minister Vincent Mwale announced that the chamber of mines was ready to finance the construction of a modernized Chisokone market, an announcement that was met with huge resistance by traders after reports alleged that the land had been sold to Chinese investors.

The opposition PF has advised the UNPD government to cancel the mining license issued to Mwembeshi Resources to operate an open-pit mine in the Lower Zambezi National Park.

In a statement, PF Chairperson for Mines and Minerals Development Pavyuma Kalobo said Zambia cannot afford to have the Minister of Green Economy and the Environment saying one thing while the Presidency says another thing.

Mr. Kalobo who is also PF Wusakile Member of Parliament said allowing mining to proceed in the Lower Zambezi National Park would be a disaster.

He said it is unfortunate that the Minister of Green Economy and the Environment has given a go-ahead to Kangaluwi Copper Mining Project while the Presidency says they are opposed to this project.

Below is Mr. Kalobo’s full statement

STOP THE BLAME GAME AND PROVIDE POLICY COHERENCY ON KANGALUWI COPPER MINE IN LOWER ZAMBEZI

Government needs policy consistency to nip in the bud the environmental disaster that will engulf Lower Zambezi National Park should Kangaluwi open-pit copper mine go ahead.

It is clear that public opinion outweighs any business interests the protagonists of this ill-conceived mining project are advancing. It is unfortunate that the Minister of Green Economy and the Environment has given a go-ahead to Kangaluwi Copper Mining Project while the Presidency says they are opposed to this project.

For nearly 100 years since commercial copper mining started in Zambia in 1925, the country has been left with gaping holes, broken roads, limping railway systems, environmental pollution in mining communities and a huge public debt. One need not look further than the lead-poisoned town of Kabwe, the stunted trees and malnourished vegetation of Chambishi, Kansuswa, Wusakile and Roan mine townships to understand the price we have paid in terms of environmental degradation.

This is what open-pit copper mining will do to the fragile eco-system in Lower Zambezi National Park and the surrounding game reserves of Chiawa, Luano and Rufunsa. It is a well-known fact that in open-pit mining, 90 percent of what is mined is soil which has to be dumped somewhere while about 10 percent of copper ore has to be smelted to extract copper.

Whenever the rains fall and whenever the winds blow, the toxic elements in the mine dumpsites and the Sulphur emissions from copper smelters find their way into river systems, underground water and surface soils. So toxic are these elements that even iron roofing sheets on houses built West of copper smelters in mine compounds on the Copperbelt have been corroded and destroyed.

Should Kangaluwi Copper Mine project be allowed to straddle the middle of the Lower Zambezi National Park, where the Zambezi and the Kafue River systems converge, the damage to vegetation, aquatic life, flora and fauna will be so huge that human-animal conflict will be exacerbated as the animal population in that fragile eco-system scatters in search of food. As for the anticipated job creation, that would not be realized because digital mining has made it possible for machines – huge one for that matter – to dig, carry, crush and smelt copper ore with fewer human beings at the controls.

Such is the heavy price we have paid for embracing automation without paying much attention to a just transition and appropriate technologies that can deliver jobs and investments in the so-called green economies and green jobs. The UPND Government will do well by levelling commercial gold and manganese mining which are being done in a haphazard manner.

Existing large copper mines also need to pay fair taxes given the high demand for copper and super commodity prices on the international market.

Getting our act right on gold, manganese, copper, cobalt and gemstones mining is a lesser evil than the blame game we are seeing from Kangaluwi Copper Mine Project.

Where public opinion outweighs business interests, the presidency has but one option – which is – to cancel the mining license in Lower Zambezi National Park. We cannot afford to have the Minister of Green Economy and the Environment saying one thing while the Presidency says another thing.

Policy coherence is needed on this matter.

Issued on Monday, 7th February 2022
By Hon. Pavyuma Kalobo
MP – Wusakile Constituency
Chairman – Mines and Minerals Development, Patriotic Front (PF)