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Debates- Wednesday, 15th November, 2006
DAILY PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES FOR THE FIRST SESSION OF THE TENTH ASSEMBLY
Wednesday, 15th November, 2006
The House met at 1430 hours
[MR SPEAKER in the Chair]
NATIONAL ANTHEM
PRAYER
_________
MOTION
MOTION OF THANKS
(Debate Resumed)
Mr Mwiimbu (Monze Central): Madam Speaker, I thank you for according me an opportunity to debate the Presidential Speech that was made in this House.
Madam Speaker, I take note of the contents of the speech, and it is not my intention to dwell on what the President said. For the last five years I have listened to him and, in most instances, what he says is not acted upon by his Cabinet. Hence, it is not my intention to dwell on what he said.
Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate you most sincerely for being elected Deputy Speaker, of this august House. It is an honour, not only for this country, but also for Africa and African women in general.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: I would also like to congratulate the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole House, Hon. Mkondo Lungu for being re-elected Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole House.
Madam Speaker, I would be failing in my duty if I do not congratulate the Speaker, of this House, who is known for his impartiality, not only in the House, but internationally.
Madam Speaker, I have noted with concern, dangerous attributes that have started creeping in in this House. Of late, I have noted colleagues who have a tendency of insulting and humiliating leaders who are not in this House. It is not fair for anyone to use this honourable platform to humiliate and insult leaders who cannot defend themselves.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Those who live in glasshouses should not throw stones.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: We are aware of colleagues who legally belong to two political parties, contrary to the law, but we are not raising these issues because we think that they will take corrective measures themselves and ensure that they comply with the law. Unfortunately, these colleagues, whenever they stand, out of frustration, they are busy insulting leaders who cannot defend themselves in this House. It is not correct. The Constitution of this country says that you can only belong to one political party. If you join another political party, you lose your seat. That is what the law says. However, it is not my intention to dwell on personalities. I am just advising my colleagues to dwell on issues for the betterment of the people of Zambia.
If you are frustrated, take your frustrations outside. This is not a House of frustrations.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, I did congratulate you for having been elected Deputy Speaker, and the Speaker being re-elected as well as the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole House. My plea to you, our leaders in Parliament, is to ensure that you are accessible to hon. Members. It is not fair to have access to you, the Speaker, and the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole House only when we are having orientation seminars. As leaders of this House, it is fair and prudent that we meet to discuss issues that affect Parliament regularly. I have every hope and confidence that, through you, the system will be changed.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, the people of Southern Province are very principled and democratic. They have always believed in principle. When they make a decision, they follow that decision based on principle. I am very proud that I am associated with UPND in conjunction with the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) for voting for Mr Hakainde Hichilema as President of UPND and UDA.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, I would like to state here that in 1991, the people of Southern Province voted for MMD overwhelmingly. Again, in 1996, they voted overwhelmingly for the MMD. They did not realise that they were voting for a sad era.
Madam Speaker, the period from 1991 to 2001 is a time that the people of Southern Province would not want to be associated with. Unfortunately, in 2001 again, the MMD era was extended by another five years. This was a sad era. The people of Southern Province voted in the pattern they did, not because of tribalism as alleged by other frustrated politicians, but because of principle.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, one important issue we should realise is that of…
Mr Kambwili interrupted
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order! Hon. Member for Roan, do not interrupt from your seat. Let us be honourables as expected. When your time to debate comes, you will debate. Therefore, please, do not shout from your seat.
Hon. Member on the Floor, please, continue.
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, thank you for protecting me. All tribes in this country are equal. There is no superior tribe or province.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Every Zambian is born equal and must have equal rights to the needs and finances of this country. Those are rights, which we, as people of this country should be able to stand up for and defend.
Mrs Musokotwane: Baambile!
Mr Mwiimbu: We should not allow anybody to divide this nation. We should not allow statements to underrate and subjugate other tribes. We are in the Great Lakes Region and we should know what is happening around us. The wars in the Great Lakes Region were cause by leaders. Therefore, leaders must be responsible.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, I also want to appeal to the press to act responsibly. In most instances, the wars and tribal conflicts in Africa are usually perpetrated by the press. Let us ensure that whenever we report, we do it responsibly for the sake of the nation.
Madam Speaker, as I was saying, when the people of Southern Province voted overwhelmingly for the MMD, it was not said to be tribal. When they opted to vote for UPND, it was tribal. Such dangerous statements should not be allowed in this country. When people vote for leaders of their choice, nobody should talk about tribalism because we believe that every person has the right to choose a leader of their choice.
Madam Speaker, all of us were voted for by people who support our ideals. Therefore, it is not correct that when somebody is voted in overwhelmingly in a certain area, we start talking about tribalism. I would like to pay growing tribute to Mr Hakainde Hichilema for bringing positive politics in this country...
Interruptions
Mr Mwiimbu: …not politics of insults. We are looking for politics of development.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Mr Hakainde has been insulted before, but he has never insulted back because he knows we cannot develop through insults. He is mature, civilised and educated. He is also a manager and a future President of this country in 2011.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, I also want to pay growing tribute to the people of Monze for having re-elected me as their representative in this House. They know that in me, they have confidence. They know that they have put somebody who is going to speak on their behalf without fear or favour. I have no doubt, once again in 2011, they will vote for me and I will be back in this House.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mwiimbu: I know that 90 per cent of my colleagues in this House will not be back…
Interruptions
Mr Mwiimbu:… especially those who behave like political mega phones.
Laughter
Mr Mwiimbu: Those who give praises unduly will not come back. The role of an hon. Member of Parliament is to provide an oversight role on Government. It is also to offer alternatives and criticise positively. That is my role. I am not here to praise anybody. I was not elected to come and praise people here. I am here to represent the people of Monze.
Laughter
Hon. UPND Members: Except Hakainde!
Mr Mwiimbu: Yes, except Hakainde.
Laughter
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, I have noted with concern that some of my colleagues are praising themselves on the achievements of the agricultural sector. I wonder which part of Zambia they come from. Where I come from, in Monze, the agricultural sector has been destroyed by the MMD in the last fifteen years.
Interruptions
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, I have listened to my colleagues praising themselves that this year, they are going to provide agricultural support to one hundred and sixty thousand farmers. How can a responsible Government praise itself for supported one hundred and sixty thousand farmers when this country has more than four million farmers? As leaders, they should be ashamed. The poverty levels in the rural areas are worsening.
Mrs Musokotwane: Including Mbala!
Mr Mwiimbu: In Mbala, the situation is deplorable. Most of the farmers have not been paid by the Food Reserve Agency and Mbala has become a ghost town.
Interruptions
Mr Mwiimbu: The Government has failed to provide requisite agricultural inputs to our people. The Government, through the Food Reserve Agency, have failed to pay for the little agricultural products that the farmers have produced. In Monze, where I come from, farmers have been spending weeks outside Finance Bank, waiting to be paid. I have never witnessed a situation like that since independence. Not until this Government came into place.
Even the promissory notes under former President Chiluba were better. At least people were not sleeping outside banks waiting for promissory notes.
Interruptions
Mr Mwiimbu: Madam Speaker, why should we allow our people to be subjected to such humiliation? I will appreciate you when you do something good, but I will not praise you. The agricultural infrastructure in the rural areas is deplorable.
Madam Speaker, we have silos in Monze that have not been in use for the last twenty years or so. I think that those silos should be handed over to ZAWA because in those silos, there are only snakes and rats.
Laughter
Mr Mwiimbu: There is need for the Government to take corrective measures.
Madam Speaker, the road infrastructure in Southern Province is deplorable. In most of the areas, roads have not been graded in the last thirty years. I do not see why we should be praising ourselves when, in actual fact, we are not doing well. The roads that were mentioned by His Excellency the President do not include any of the critical roads in Southern Province.
Madam Speaker, the people of the valley who suffered the brunt of the liberation war need development. Construction of the Bottom Road is the only form of development they are expecting, but the President never even mentioned this road. It is actually, no longer the Bottom Road because when his Excellency the President came to the Lwindi Ceremony he named it Mwanawasa Road. Still, it has not been worked on. We are looking forward to that road being worked on. We are also looking forward to the Namwala /Choma Road to being completed. That road has been under discussion, funded and money diverted over the past forty-three years. What offence have we committed against the Governments of this country? I can assure you that as long as you do not provide requisite development in Southern Province, you are hardening the people of Southern Province.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Madam Speaker, I got 12,000 votes in 2006. In the just ended elections, I got 19,000 votes. I am like red wine. The older it is, the better.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order! Address the Chair.
Mr Mwiimbu: Thank you, Madam. Therefore, if you think that you are punishing them, you are not. They are principled and very resolute. If you think that you are punishing them you will not achieve what you want.
Madam Speaker, The education sector has collapsed. The conditions of service for teachers are deplorable. I would like to urge the Government to resolve the issue of housing allowances for public workers. I do not see why any reasonable employer should not pay housing allowance with the salary. Why separate housing allowance from the salary? The reason they are doing that is because they do not want to be responsible.
Finally, Madam Speaker, if one praises you, even when you know that you have not done well, you should realise that there is something wrong with you.
Madam Speaker, I thank you.
Hon. UDA Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Imenda (Lukulu East): Madam Speaker, may I through you, take this opportunity to thank the people of Lukulu East for according me a second opportunity to be part of this hon. House.
Madam Speaker, allow me to congratulate you on your ascension to the position of Deputy Speaker. Madam, it is a rare feat.
May I also congratulate the hon. Mr Speaker, and the Deputy Chairman of Committees on their re-election to continue serving this House respectively. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the President of ULP for his gallant show in the Livingstone Parliamentary seat.
Madam Speaker, unlike the lucky people of Malambo Constituency…
Laughter
Mr Imenda:… who have everything provided for by the Government, I stand here, not proud because I represent a constituency from the poorest district located in the poorest province in a highly indebted poor country …
Laughter
Mr Imenda: … Madam Speaker, Lukulu District as per record of the Central Statistical Office and the Poverty Strategy Paper of 1980, reflect 98.7 per cent incidences of poverty. Madam, what is happening is that this appalling situation is in perpetuity.
Madam Speaker, our economic lifeline in Lukulu is the Lukulu/Kaoma Road. This road does not qualify to be part of modern Zambia. You will agree with me that tarred roads attract a multiplier effect. I am saying so because financial institutions like ZANACO are unable to establish a branch in our district because of the state of the inter-district road. All marketing companies and other establishments are in a similar quagmire. The Ministry of Works and Supply should seriously consider tarring our road. Like I stated above, the action will have spill over effects to all sectors of district economies.
Madam Speaker, it is only in Lukulu where you still find mud and grass thatched schools constructed before the British colonised Zambia. That implication means that the Kapayi School was built in 1923 was found and left by the British Government unattended to. It was found and left by the UNIP Government and equally found and left by the Chiluba Administration. It has again, been ignored in the last five years by the New Deal Government.
Madam Speaker, I have many such schools constructed over fifty years ago. Why should this administration brook itself like others before it for the economic neglect of our district? The harsh reality is that more than 98 per cent of schools in my constituency were built by church organisations. Successive Zambian Governments have nothing to show for it. The teacher-pupil ration is unacceptably high so is the pupil-desk ration. In many schools, children sit on the floor. In the last allocation of teachers to provinces, we did not understand why Western Province was allocated seventeen teachers only to be shared among seven districts. My district, Lukulu got zero. Eastern Province was privileged to get 1,015. Chibombo District got more than the entire Western Province.
Madam Speaker, it is a fact that education is the foundation for an unenlightened productive and visionary labour force. That being the case, why then, should we be abandoned to perpetual suffering, ignorance, neglect and exclusion?
Madam Speaker, food is security. Agriculture forms the base and cornerstone of our economy. Any poverty reduction strategy that does not evolve around agriculture is empty and bound to fail. It is, therefore, surprising that the Dongwe Farming Block in Lukulu, established at the turn of 2003, is yet a reality. Is this not a contradiction of the President’s plea to chiefs when he stated, I quote:
‘Our traditional rulers should also embrace the settlement of those leaving employment, the youth and other groups in need of land for resettlement.’
By providing land for a farming block, our chiefs have delivered, but three years down the line, the Government has not yet constructed a road leading to the farming block. Even the demarcation of land is not yet complete. Social amenities such as clean water, energy, improved schools and clinics are not yet in place.
In areas where we already have farmers, we receive inadequate inputs that are never delivered on time. Produce marketing is non-existence in my district. Is this the way the New Deal Administration will defeat hunger? Is this their best way of reducing poverty by ignoring vulnerable areas such as ours? I hope the Minister of Agriculture and Co-operatives is taking note of this desperate plea.
Madam Speaker, the price of copper has been at its highest peak for many years. The last time a similar situation was obtaining, Zambia was one of the best economies in the Third World. Countries such as Korea, Singapore and Malaysia could not compare with us, but today Korea is the eleventh most developed country in the world. This is not the same for Zambia today because the mines are not in our control. We have availed foreign investors long tax holidays. As a result we have become spectators of our money going to enrich other countries. The President, in his address to this august House, expressed serious concerns with regard to unfair dealings of our investors vis-à-vis their approach to Zambian businessmen and women, and also on the review of mineral royalties aimed at enhancing national benefit from the mining industry revenue.
Madam, we should not look at who is wrong, but what is wrong. What is wrong is the system. I am glad that the President took note of the Government’s weak approach in negotiations and dealings. Zambians must benefit from their God given wealth.
The discovery of oil and gas confirmed by the President in his address to the First Session of the Tenth National Assembly brought joy to all Zambians. However, I expected him to include, in his revelations, other areas in Zambia where gas and oil were discovered as far back as 1981.
Madam Speaker, I am talking of a comprehensive study undertaken by Mr N. J. Money, the then Deputy Director of the Geological Survey Department. His report entitled ‘Hydrocarbon Potential in Zambia’, which was launched by the late Hon. Mufaya Mumbuna, the then Minister of Mines, on the occasion of signing the Hydrocarbon Agreement on 18th August, 1981 revealed as follows:
‘The geological information in Zambia indicates that there are at least seven sedimentary basins. These are, in order of importance, the:
1. Western Province Basin (Barotse Basin);
2. Luangwa Basin;
3. Mid Zambezi Basin;
4. Kafue Trough Basin;
5. Luano-Lukasashi Basin;
6. Bangweulu Swamp Basin; and the
7. Lukanga Swamp Basin
All the basins, with the exception of the last two are proved to have the largest sediments dating from Permian times, i.e. over 200 million years. The largest of the basins and the one which is considered to have a thick sedimentary pile is the Western Zambia Basin.’
Madam Speaker, why should we undertake further studies when we have information before us? The above study has been on the shelves for twenty-five years and has now gathered dust. Why are we excited by new discoveries leaving old ones? This august House needs an answer.
Madam, we have successfully reached the HIPC completion point what I wish to know is how this achievement relates to resource delivery in the social sector. I also wish to know how the attainment of the single digit inflation has benefited a common man in the streets, as well as the farmer in my constituency. Similarly, I wish to state that the benefits of the Kwacha gaining against the dollar have not trickled down to the people of my constituency.
You will, therefore, agree with me that the much talked about economic gains have not brought ‘A feel good’ factor to the majority of Zambians, especially those living along the line of rail. No wonder there was a voter backlash against the MMD during the just ended Tripartite Elections. I am sure, the Hon. Minister, Ng’andu ‘HIPC’ Magande has taken note.
Laughter
Mr Imenda: It is customary that at the beginning of each year, the Executive prepares a budget that is authorised by Parliament. A similar pattern is followed when the Government is seeking approval of a supplementary budget. Why do we not do the same on foreign borrowing? After all, this is a commitment to the nation that has serious implications. It is for that reason that we ended up being one of the highly indebted poor countries.
Madam, attaining the HIPC completion point was in itself a brilliant feat, but it is important to address the issue from a historic perspective by asking how Zambia found itself in the HIPC initiative. The countries and institutions we owed considered our debt of US $7 billion at the time obviouly, unsustainable. As a nation, we should not prolong celebrations for being forgiven our self inflicted debt burden, but must strive to grow and sustain the economy.
We have been given a chance to start afresh. We should take stock of how and where we went wrong in the last forty-two years. As a legislative organ, we demand for comprehensive annual reports to be provided to us by the Minister of Finance and National Planning. The report should give us an insight of our yearly borrowing and debt servicing schedules.
In future, we may be lucky to be forgiven by the donor community who may attempt to come and recolonise us with a view of recovering their debts. Madam Speaker, I will reiterate a point relating to lack of delivery in the social sector. I wish to categorically state that we have not yet felt the impact of having reached the HIPC completion point. The onus, therefore, is on the Ministry of Finance and National Planning.
Madam Speaker, I have already alluded to the fact that Western Province is the poorest province in Zambia. The gap between North Western Province, the second poorest, and Western Province is getting wider. It is widening because development in Western Province is static yet we have a solid highly enlightened human resource, fertile land in places like Kaoma, Lukulu, Shangombo, Kalabo and Mongu. We have Timber, cashew nuts and rice and above all abundant oil resources as indicated earlier. In view of the foregoing, we demand for a change in the budgetary allocation pattern that has been biased against properly targeted and poverty focused interventions that are pro-poor.
Madam Speaker, the MMD has no reason not to deliver in the next five years. Western Province gave President Mwanawasa the highest vote going by the statistics below.
Western Province – 77.3 percent
North Western - 69.9 percent
Central Province – 67.9 percent
Northern 49.9 percent
Eastern 44.2 percent
Copperbelt – 38.3 percent
Luapula – 33.3 percent
Lusaka – 27.7 percent
Southern – 20.1 percent
Madam Speaker, the President should, therefore, reciprocate this good gesture by offering Western Province MMD Members of Parliament a corresponding number of Cabinet portfolios. Similarly, a deliberate policy aimed at turning around the poverty levels in Western Province must be put in place starting with the road infrastructure.
Madam Speaker, I also wish to add my voice to those that have already spoken on the scandalous issue of the Mongu/Kalabo Road. This road has already gobbled over K200 billion, but they have nothing to show for it except a short stretch from Dabo to Kalabo Boma. As a landlocked country, we should as a matter of strategy, apply a ‘hub and spoke’ concept to overcome the economic hardships. The New Deal Government should realise that the people of Western Province look up to this road for economic, social and cultural exchange with Angola. The Angola route provides the shortest route to the sea. The failed road exposes serious engineering inadequacies in the road design discipline, therefore, causing excessive damage in the ecological and economical spheres. My advice to the new Minister of Works and Supply is as follows: …
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order! The hon. Member’s time has expired.{mospagebreak}
The Minister for Copperbelt Province (Mr Mbulakulima): Madam Speaker, I wish to thank you for according me this opportunity to deliver my maiden speech to this august House. It is a great honour for me to take my place in this auspicious and honourable House.
I want to record, very simply and humbly, a sense of honour and privilege at having been elected to represent the 31,000 plus people of Chembe Constituency. I thank the people of Chembe for the confidence and trust they have placed in me. May I also thank His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia for having appointed me as Minister for the Copperbelt Province and may I also thank my dear wife Grace and children Chaile, Mukoba and Mwila for the exceptional support rendered to me before, during and after the campaigns. They were and still are a great source of strength, courage and inspiration to me.
Madam Speaker, may I now take the rare privilege to congratulate His Excellency the president Mr Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, SC. on his resounding victory to a second term of office as Republican President of our great and blessed nation Zambia.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: Madam Speaker, let me also congratulate all Members of the New Deal Movement for Multi Party Democracy (MMD) on their election or re-election or nomination to the National Assembly. The victory of the New Deal MMD in the just held elections demonstrates that our party still commands the greatest breadth of political base and support than any other political party in our country.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: Hon. Members, I am pleased to sit in this august House with you because I believe we present a membership of men and women who the electorate believe have a great thrust and effectiveness to take this country further on its positive developmental path for the greater good of Zambia and its wonderful people. The electorate have shown clearly that they were happy with the policies of the New Deal Government in the last five years and have, therefore, given us a further mandate to complete all projects and indeed embark on new ones.
Madam Speaker, I would, therefore, be failing in my duties if I did not congratulate the Speaker on his re-election. His re-election demonstrates the confidence hon. Members of this august House have in his able leadership and I am positive that he will continue to steer the business of this House in an effective and impartial manner as he did in the last Parliament.
I would also like to congratulate you Madam Deputy Speaker, and the Deputy Chairperson of Committees of the whole House on your election. Through you, Madam Speaker, let me specifically acknowledge the fact that your election as Deputy Speaker is a clear manifestation of the commitment this Government has to promote gender balance and the emancipation of women.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: Madam Speaker, I now wish to congratulate His Excellency the President on His address at the Official Opening of Parliament. The speech by the President to this august House was motivating, inspiring and gave tremendous hope and direction to the continued economic recovery of this country.
Madam Speaker, various key issues that affect the lives of our people on a day-to-day basis were brought to the fore. Among the highlighted were casualisation of labour in the mines, road maintenance and rehabilitation and agriculture diversification. I wish to salute is Excellency the President for charting the vision of this country clearly.
Madam Speaker, as stated earlier, I am privileged to represent the people of Chembe in this august House. My constituency is in the backwoods of Luapula Province and is divided into two parts. The eastern part which houses the boma and is home to Chieftainess Sokontwe and sub Chief Kafwanka and the western part home to Senior Chief Milambo the senior chief of the Ushi people and the primary custodian of the Ushi tradition.
Madam Speaker, the message from the people of Chembe Constituency was and is still very clear. They want development. Like any other rural constituency, Chembe has not been spared from the ravages of under development. However, the people of Chembe are different from other constituencies and this they have demonstrated through their voting pattern
They overwhelmingly voted for the MMD and His Excellency the President. He completely out classed the PF leader by more than 70 per cent of vote cast, and out of thirteen wards, MMD won eleven leaving only two to share among the Opposition.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: The people have spoken in no uncertain terms. It is only the MMD which can take development to that area. My people strongly believe that the problems they are facing are not insurmountable. They further believe that with the construction of the bridge on the Luapula River and the envisaged tarring of the Pedicle Road, Chembe Constituency is destined to prosperity.
Hon. Government Member: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: However, Madam Speaker, there are certain areas which need serious and immediate attention.
The distance between the East and West of my constituency is 220Km, and a further 78Km from Mansa to reach senior Chief Milambo’s palace. This distance must be reduced through the creation of district roads and with my Government’s policy on road infrastructure this will be made possible.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: The constituency is in dire need of another high school, so as to allow every child to have equal and affordable access to education up to Grade 12.
Madam Speaker, I am extremely happy that my Government is committed to ensuring that every child gets the best possible education and has given this high priority in its developmental programmes. It is for this reason that my Government has embarked on the construction of yet another high school in the eastern side of the constituency at Milengi. Further more, more than 120 teachers are earmarked for recruitment before the end of the year.
Madam Speaker, the provision of and access to quality health care to the people of Chembe is of utmost importance. I am supremely confident that the noble desire for the district hospital in my constituency will receive serious attention from my Government.
Madam Speaker, my constituency has not been spared from the HIV/AIDS pandemic. You might be interested to know that 60 per cent of my people in Chembe are youths, and so, are very exposed to the ravages of HIV/AIDS. I am however, pleased, to note that the Government has introduced free anti-retroviral treatment in rural health centres, thus, making it easier for my people to access treatment.
Madam Speaker, it is my intention as Member of Parliament, to encourage my constituents to lead a positive and fulfilling life by observing abstinence, faithfulness and condom use.
Hon. Government Member: Not polygamy.
Mr Mbulakulima: Madam Speaker, the people of Chembe are basically a rural people who by and large depend on the agriculture sector for their livelihood. The MMD Government has placed agriculture on the centre stage of its development agenda, as this is the engine for economic development. The sector ensures food security, income generation and poverty reduction for our people. I will therefore, as Member of Parliament and minister support the agricultural policies of my Government so that the needs and aspirations of my people in Chembe are met.
Madam Speaker, the issue of water supply and sanitation is quite critical to the lives of my people in Chembe Constituency. My people travel long distances …
Laughter
Mr Mbulakulima: … to fetch water from nearby rivers and streams and thus consuming time for other productive activities. I am positive, Madam Speaker, that sinking of boreholes in my constituency will alleviate, to a very large extent, the suffering of my people. I am also aware that the provision of clean and safe water is one of the challenges of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that this Government is heavily committed to. I am therefore, consoled that the seriousness the Government has shown in the provision of clean water will inevitably reach Chembe Constituency.
Madam Speaker, Zambia this year celebrated the world telecommunications day, thus sending a very consolidated message to the world that Zambia is part of the global village. As the country strives to improve its telecommunication capacity, it becomes important that most areas like my constituency are taken on board so that my constituents and I move together.
Madam Speaker, may I at this juncture thank Celtel Zambia Limited for having gone an extra mile to accommodate Milenge Boma by providing their facility in that area.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: As a Government we shall now endeavour to take communication facilities to the other side of my constituency, which is totally cut off from the rest of the province.
Madam Speaker, Chembe Constituency has not yet received hydro-electricity power. It is therefore my desire that during my term of office, this is done in order to enhance economic and social development.
Mr Sichilima: They will connect.
Mr Mbulakulima: Madam Speaker, may I take this opportunity to assure the people of Copperbelt Province for which I am minister, that the best has arrived in the province.
Mr Sichilima: Hear, hear! Wekeshapo.
Mr Mbulakulima: I am aware, Madam Speaker, that the Copperbelt is a province of diversified interests, as well as key in the development of this country’s economy. May I therefore, assure the people of the Copperbelt that I am equally coming from a diverse background, where I was a trade unionist. I was Munali Constituency chairperson, head of the Human Resources Department at Zambia State Insurance Corporation and a spokesperson for the Football Association of Zambia.
Hon. Opposition Member: Eheh football.
Mr Mbulakulima: Interestingly, Madam Speaker, my father was a miner and I was born and raised on the Copperbelt. The province has a special place in my heart.
Madam Speaker, my diversified background goes to show that in me, people with varied interests including Members of Parliament from the PF seated here today …
Mr Sichilima: Yes, tell them, Kambwili.
Mr Mbulakuima: … will find space and together we shall propel the province to greater heights.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakuima: Madam Speaker, as you are aware, the Copperbelt Province has a population of about 1.5 million people. The province continues to be a major contributor to the nation’s economic development and many activities are centred on mining, and this will continue in the long term.
However, as you may be aware, our vision in the province is to have a diversified and self-sustaining economy that meets the aspirations of the people of the Copperbelt Province community by 2030.
Madam Speaker, during the 2004/2005 farming season, a total of 118,738 metric tonnes of maize were produced. However, 165,390 metric tonnes of maize have been produced for the period 2005/06 farming season. This positive trend can only be attributed to good policies of the New Deal Government especially the timely distribution of in puts.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakuima: Other crops of significance on the Copperbelt include sweet potatoes of which 21,900 metric tonnes were recorded with wheat and millet recording 42,000/15,000 metric tonnes respectively. The province is also gaining prominence in horticultural and livestock.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: Madam Speaker, in line with the President’s speech in which he outlined the Government’s role aimed at improving the performance of tourism, the province has already identified about 29 tourist areas and sites in all districts in the province. These include, the crash site, museums, hot springs, visual arts and crafts centres, natural lakes and waterfalls. In this regard, twelve projects have been approved and funded under the Tourism Development Credit Facility (TCCF) amounting to K1.4 billion.
Madam Speaker, as the President mentioned in his speech, the mining sector continues to perform to expectations and is contributing to employment and wealth creation in the province.
The President stated that provision of good road infrastructure attracts investment to outlying areas, as well as promote trade and agriculture. In the Copperbelt Province a number of roads are under rehabilitation namely:
(i) The rehabilitation of the Chingola/Solwezi, Chingola/Kasumbalesa and the Kafulafuta/Luanshya roads;
(ii) A number of feeder roads and townships in all districts have been repaired and more are planned to be rehabilitated.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: Madam Speaker, these are selected planned activities for the year 2006/07 for the province:
(i) Widening of the Kitwe/Chingola/Kasumbalesa road into a dual carriage way; and the
(ii) rehabilitation of the Kitwe/Kalulushi/Lufwanyama and Kalulushi/Sabina Road;
(iii) rehabilitation of the Ndola/Mufulira road all very key economic links between the Copperbelt towns and other provinces; and the
(iv) rehabilitation of selected township/urban roads in all districts under the Accelerated Road Rehabilitation Programme (ARRP).
Madam Speaker, it is clear that the New Deal Government’s efforts in the economic financial and mining sectors in the last five years have boosted broad based investment and productivity in the province.
Recently, the President commissioned the following:
(i) The Zambezi Portland Cement Factory
(ii) The Tata Bus Body Plant in Ndola
(iii) The Leach Plant at NFC in Chambeshi
(iv) The New Mufulira Smelter
In addition, there are other new industries, which opened up mainly to provide support services to the mines.
Madam Speaker, in my administration, there will be no space for riotous councillors and Members of Parliament and indeed, any other individuals.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: My Government stands for progress and shall work with people of progressive ideas.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: Madam, it shall not be the size of the chest or the height that will matter, but the capacity of an individual to contribute in the acceleration of economic development. I must emphasise that there is only one Government of which I am one of the ministers. Therefore, I expect all those who crave for development in their respective constituencies on the Copperbelt Province to co-operate with my office.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mbulakulima: Finally, Madam Speaker, with regard to football, I would like to inform this august House, especially, Hon. Muntanga, Member of Parliament for Kalomo, that while Collins Mbesuma was advised to lose 10kgs in training in order to attain the required weight, I was also busy losing 12kgs during the campaigns. Now that electioneering is over, any gain in weight must not be misconstrued to relate to the recent appointment.
Laughter
Mr Mbulakulima: It will be a matter of regaining the ground lost during the recent campaign.
I thank you, Madam.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela (Wusakile): Madam Speaker, I am greatly honoured and humbled to be given this opportunity to debate the Presidential Speech and to present my Maiden Speech.
Madam, firstly, I would like to congratulate you, the Hon. Mr Speaker, the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole House for being elected in your respective positions. I would also like to thank the people of Wusakile Constituency for electing me to represent them in this august House. Many thanks go to the Almighty God and my party, Patriotic Front for adopting me to contest the seat.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: Furthermore, I would like to thank the people of Wusakile Constituency for giving my President, Mr Michael Chilufya Sata the highest vote.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: He got 17,000 votes against 5,000 for the Republican President.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: Madam Speaker, the issue raised during the election period by the people of Wusakile and Zambia at large, are clear and loud. The Government must reflect seriously on the people’s concerns with a view to implement them immediately.
Madam, the 2006 elections gave us an opportunity to make right all that went wrong before 2001 elections and indeed, all that has gone wrong since the fraudulent 2006 elections, which produced the MMD Government though with a highly questionable mandate.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: Madam Speaker, the MMD Government has imposed itself on the majority of Zambians without looking at the sufferings and plight of the people. I commend the people of Lusaka, Copperbelt, Luapula and Northen provinces for voting wisely. They did so because they understand issues better.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: Madam, Limaposa area has no school nearby. As a result, most of the children are forced to walk a distance of 15 kilometres to a community school. Because of the hardship parents go through, they cannot afford to pay for their children on a daily basis to travel to and from schools that are only found in towns. I appeal to the hon. Minister of Education to mobilise resources to construct a school in the area.
Madam, agriculture plays a very important role in economic development in the sense that it is simply one industry with a difference. To begin with, the agriculture sector employees more people than other industries. This Government has failed to provide good physical infrastructure both in rural and urban areas to enable smooth delivery of inputs as well as marketing of agricultural products.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: Madam Speaker, I have many roads in my constituency which have never been worked on in more than ten years. One example is the Cedrics Road. Farmers in this area can no longer take their produce to the market because of the bad road. You cannot boast of a good agriculture policy when the Government is failing to provide road infrastructure.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: Madam Speaker, please, allow me to address the issue of human rights. To me, human rights go beyond domestication of international treaties on good governance and laws. Human rights have to do with the provision of basic incentives of life. As a Member of Parliament from a constituency that embraces urban and peri-urban, I am sadly aware of the horrible conditions under which my people live, as indeed is the case with many other places.
Madam, people in Wusakile Constituency have been denied basic needs such as water and sanitation. The toilets in Wusakile townships are communal. Sixty houses share one toilet.
Hon. PF Members: Shame!
Mr Chela: An average of 480 people share one toilet, hence people queue in order to use the toilets. As a result, some people are forced to use empty Shake-Shake packs in order to answer the call of nature.
Hon. PF Members: Shame! Shame!
Mr Chela: This is sad. I am appealing to the Government to immediately look into this matter.
Madam Speaker, the problem of street kids has not spared our town, Kitwe. I am strongly appealing to the Government, through the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services to intervene before they grow up and become dangerous criminals.
Madam, with regard to Kitwe Central Hospital, the current health care system is characterised by critical shortage of health personnel, especially doctors and nurses. The few staff available are over-worked, demotivated and poorly remunerated. Most health infrastructure and facilities are also in a state of disrepair due to lack of maintenance while they also suffer from lack of critical basic equipment and medicine.
When patients go to the hospital, they are only treated with panadol. They eventually die because there are no special drugs. This reminds me of the song which the people were singing during my campaign. They said, ‘ifwe tukafwila mung’anda pantu ifipatala fyaba kankala’.
Mr Sichilima: Translate!
Mr Chela: This means that we will continue dying in our homes because hospitals are for the rich people.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear! Shame!
Mr Chela: I, therefore, appeal to the Government, through the Ministry of Health to work extra hard so that health standards can be improved in our country.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear! Tell them!
Mr Chela: Madam Speaker, like all of us here, I am a strong believer in the Local Government system because I am a product of Local Government, having been a councillor and deputy mayor for the city of Kitwe for quite some time. I also believe that as a nation, we have already set ourselves goals of achieving good governance which is essential to economic and social development.
My understanding of good governance is that it includes respect for human rights and the rule of law, accountability and transparency in Government, and participation by the citizens through the democratic process.
Madam Speaker, just about everything an individual does is, in one way or another looked after by a local authority. Yet in Zambia, Local Government has been left to pass through a rough time of neglect resulting into the public losing confidence in the system. The tragedy is that for sometime now, we have had leaders who did not understand the role of Local Government in national development or were quite happy to turn their backs on local problems in the belief that market forces would solve them.
Despite several petitions on the Government by concerned citizens and institutions to correct the situation, there has been a complete lack of positive response from the Government which demonstrates further the apparent absence of seriousness in appreciating the need to create a strong, purposeful and vibrant Local Government. At best, the Government has only been generous in providing lip service. They even withdrew funding to city and municipal councils. I appeal to the Government through the Ministry of Local Government and Housing to transfer the paying of motor vehicle licenses and fuel levy to councils so that they can be self-sustaining.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: Madam Speaker, the New Deal Government has failed to address the issue of housing for the poor majority of Zambians. The housing facilities that have been put in place are only be accessed by the high and middle-income groups. This is because of the high cost of building materials and yet the Government had promised to reduce taxes on the building materials so that materials could be affordable. Nothing is happening.
In the last five years, we have seen that a lot of people have taken the initiative to put up decent houses for themselves. Unfortunately, there are a number of disappointments even in that area. Upcoming housing schemes are not provided with corresponding infrastructure development. There are no proper water and sanitation, schools, clinics, markets and recreation facilities.
People have anxiously been waiting for a new constitution. They want a constitution that will be driven by all Zambians.
Madam Speaker, I appeal to this House to start the process of enacting a law to establish a constituent assembly to pave way for a new constitution as soon as possible to satisfy the majority Zambians.
Hon. PF Members: Shame.
Mr Chela: Madam Speaker, we cannot wait for 2008 to start this process as indicated by the President. This exercise is a priority to all Zambians. I again appeal to the Government to mobilise resources and start the process as I mentioned earlier.
Before I conclude, allow me to thank my President, Mr Michael Sata, my family and all those who made it possible for me to be here.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chela: I would like to appeal to the people of Zambia to vote for President Sata in the next elections so that they can benefit from his wisdom.
I thank you, Madam Speaker.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!{mospagebreak}
Mr Hamusonde (Nangoma): Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate Mr Speaker on his re-election to this august House. His re-election is a testimony of the trust we have in him to continue conducting business of the House objectively without fear or favour. Allow me also to congratulate you, Madam Speaker, on your election success. I am sure that having a woman Deputy Speaker will not end with you. We shall be delighted to see more women ascend to high positions like yours. I would also like to congratulate the Deputy Chairman of Committees on his re-election.
Madam Speaker, I thank you for giving me this rare chance to stand here and address this august House. First and foremost, I wish to thank the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) and its President, Mr Hakainde Hichilema, for adopting me as their candidate in Nangoma Constituency. I also pay tribute to the people of Nangoma Constituency for making me their number one choice. By doing so, the residents of Nangoma have made me their servant and I stand ready to be of service to them by effectively representing them through this august House. By giving me their vote, the people of Nangoma clearly demonstrated the confidence and trust that they have in me. On my part, I will always be duty bound to be at their beck and call. I intend to visit my constituency as frequently as possible to monitor the projects we will formulate with my members.
Madam Speaker, the biggest enemy of the people of Zambia in general and of Nangoma, in particular, is poverty. There is poverty of not having enough food to eat at household level, poverty of not having easy access to medical facilities and many other forms of human deprivation. My role in these five years will be that of commander in the war against poverty. It will not be an easy war. For this war to be won, however, one thing is crucial. I will need to spend more time with the people of Nangoma. The people of Nangoma Constituency just like the people of Zambia are in a hurry to develop and raise the standard of living because they have suffered for too long. That is why they elected me because I am an action-oriented man. I will initiate development projects to empower women and youths. These groups will work with church organisations, non-governmental organisations and other institutions in food aid.
Madam Speaker, let me now briefly discuss issues of poverty, health, tourism, agriculture, water supply and general sanitation, education, roads, transport and communication.
I wish to take this opportunity to state that a healthy population is a productive population and, therefore, key to national development. In this case, if we are going to promote economic growth in this country, we must have a healthy workforce. This means that the Government should formulate the national budget in such a manner that more resources are committed towards improving health services and infrastructure. The Government should not only build new hospitals and clinics, but also improve the supply of drugs and ensure that both hospitals and clinics have adequate and appropriate personnel.
HIV/AIDS is claiming many lives everyday. Improvement in the supply of drugs and anti-retroviral drugs is essential in the fight against HIV/AIDS. I will encourage the people to go for voluntary counselling. Support groups will be formed to work together with the home care based groups in order to work effectively. I appeal to the Government and NGOs to train more people to manage health care centre.
These people will work in conjunction with the people doing home-based care for the terminally ill, who can only be nursed at home. Treating some of the terminally ill at home also helps in decongesting clinics. Access to drugs and good nutrition is important for people with HIV/AIDS. The groups that I will form will enhance the NGO that deal with community sensitisation on HIV/AIDS.
Madam Speaker, cancer is claiming a lot of lives of both men and women. The outcry is for qualified personnel dealing in cancer. Therefore, we look forward to the fully utilisation of the cancer centre in Lusaka.
Madam Speaker, tourism is potential for growth as it creates employment for the locals, boosts development, and indeed, encourages other development activities. I call upon the Government, through the appropriate ministry to look at the potential of the Blue Lagoon National Park in Nangoma Constituency.
Madam Speaker, Nangoma, just like many other rural constituencies depend on agriculture as its economic mainstay. It is both a source of food and money. In short, it provides employment to almost all men and women in the area. The need to strongly support this sector in my constituency, therefore, need not be over emphasised. Together with my constituency officers, I will speed up the creation of more co-operatives in the constituency to increase the level of efficiency in the marketing of both inputs and outputs.
As Member of Parliament for Nangoma, I would like to see an improved crop marketing structure. Like it or not, we need to improve this aspect. It is time agriculture was viewed as a business and not a traditional practice. Our people need to know how to manage business. Therefore, the work groups that I talked about earlier will also be used to sensitise people on the basic business techniques such as pricing of maize, cassava, sweet potatoes or any other products that they produce. Controlling of animal diseases is also critical if the people’s dream of diversifying from crop products is to be realised.
I look forward to the construction of dip tanks in centrally located areas to curb animal diseases that have attacked our animals from time to time. The department of Veterinary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives need to have its capacity enhanced without delay so that the lives of our animals can be saved by having a number of agricultural extension officers educating our people on the care of livestock. I wish to commend the Government on the timely delivery of agricultural inputs. This year, we hope that this trend will continue as it will boost the farmers’ morale and increase their output.
Madam Speaker, clean water is essential for health living. I wish to see enough boreholes sunk and dams constructed in Nangoma Constituency. Rural people have the right to clean water just like the urban people. My appeal therefore, is to the Government to extend their programme of clean water supply to every part of this country. This can be number one because we are all Zambians and are in a hurry to develop our beloved country.
Madam Speaker, education is a basic human right. As such, I appeal to the Government to continue building schools in rural areas. There is need for more schools to be constructed in the rural areas and more trained teachers should be posted, especially to Nangoma Constituency to improve literacy and also encourage those that have the will to continue in their education. As we are all aware, education widens your understanding and interpretation of issues.
Madam Speaker, the road network needs immediate attention in certain areas. The road leading to the Blue Lagoon National Park has to be worked on so that we can attract more tourists and many other activities, which in turn, bring development. Therefore, on behalf of the people of Nangoma, I wish to make an earnest appeal to the Government to come in and boost the area. By improving the roads we would also have improved transportation of agriculture produce and passenger transport.
I would also like to implore mobile technology companies to extend their services to rural areas, especially Nangoma Constituency. This, I believe, will act as a catalyst in the development efforts of the people of my constituency.
Madam Speaker, let me end by making an appeal and request to the Government to implore the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to look for the investor who was running the Lwili Mine. This investor ran away without payment benefits to the workers. Treating workers in this manner is inhuman, therefore, the culprit should be dealt with. I humbly appeal to the Government to trace the investor’s whereabouts and establish what happened so that my people can be paid their dues accordingly.
Nangoma people, I love you and thank you for your vote.
With these words, I beg to move.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile (Malole): Madam Speaker, I thank you very much for affording me this opportunity to present my maiden speech to this august House. It is indeed an honour and privilege for me, and for that, I will always be indebted to the people of Malole Constituency who have made it possible for me to be part of this august House.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile: Madam Speaker, I wish to congratulate the Speaker on his re-election. To you madam, my sister in the Lord and the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole House, congratulations on your elections to your respective portfolios. My prayer is that you give Godly guidance and counsel to us all, more especially to those of us who are here for the first time. May God give you wisdom as you lead this august House.
Madam Speaker, allow me to say the biggest thanks, love and appreciation to my wife, children and other family members. I am happy that we are walking a very strange path now and I cannot express how grateful and relieved I am that we are walking it together. I also say a big thank you to my campaign team for their resilience, dedication and encouragement in the moments when I was tempted to give up during the campaigns.
My other thanks and appreciations go to all the friends who supported me financially, materially and spiritually. May the Lord richly bless them all.
To the electorates of Malole Constituency, thank you for the confidence and trust you have shown in me and placing me above all the other candidates who stood. I promise not to let you down. My paramount duty is to serve you to the best of my ability.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile: Madam Speaker, may I also congratulate the President on his re-election and I wish him well.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile: To you, hon. Members who faced the electorates, you fought a good fight and deserve to be congratulated.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile: The same goes for those who are in the House by nomination, you have earned it. Special thanks go to mum and dad posthumously for their encouragement when I lost in the 2001 elections. Without them, I would not have given it another try. How I wish they were here, I miss them so much.
Mr Kapita crossed the Floor.
Hon. Members: Order!
Mr Munaile: Madam Speaker, I would be failing if I did not thank the almighty God for allowing me to be here, for promotion comes from him. I will forever be grateful to him.
Madam Speaker, any new hon. Member rising to make their first speech in the Chamber cannot help, but be aware of the history and tradition that reside in it. Traditionally, a maiden speech is non-controversial, yet some distinguished hon. Members, past and present, have maintained a tradition of rubble rousing and controversy.
Interruptions
Mr Munaile: Which tradition should I follow? I believe that no tradition deserves to be honoured for its own sake, but for its merit and relevance to modern day conditions. We must move with the times if we are not to atrophy into some quaint, but irrelevant sideshow, fit only for tourists to admire.
In a sense, the fact that I am here is the most welcome break from tradition because it is my privilege to be the first independent member for Malole, an honour for which I thank the voters of the constituency and those who worked so hard on my behalf.
Madam Speaker, Malole Constituency is located in Mungwi District of Northern Province. In fact, Malole Constituency is Mungwi District. It is ten thousand square kilometers with twenty-four thousand three hundred and ninety-four households and the population of one hundred and twelve thousand people, according to the demography report of 2000. Like all other rural constituencies in Zambia, Malole is faced with a number of problems such as poor health facilities, poor education system, bad roads, unemployment and many others, which were even highlighted in the Presidential Speech to this august House on the 27th of October 2006.
Interruptions
Mr Munaile: Some of the hon. Members who have spoken before me, both from the Ruling Party and the Opposition, have also agreed that the country needs change in the manner that Government resources are deployed and utilised, …
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile:…improvement in service delivery, provision of basic needs and many others.
Madam Speaker, allow me to address myself to a number of issues, which affect the households of Malole and have contributed to the high poverty levels in the constituency. The attainment of the Millennium Development Goals will be a pipe dream if the Government is not committed to the reduction of poverty in our country. Poverty is the most profound challenge that Zambia faces today. Poverty has bred a social crisis in Zambia that stifles development and has culminated into the majority of the people failing to meet basic daily needs of life.
The gravity of the situation has led to the loss of many lives due to hunger, sickness and diseases including HIV/AIDS. Poverty has triggered rural-urban migration which has in turn impacted negatively on the social service providers in urban areas, who have failed to provide the needed services such as good education, good health facilities, clean water and sanitation and many others.
The rural to urban migration has led to informal trading, as people cannot find expected employment and informal housing or squatter settlements, as the case is in Lusaka. Unless the Government puts in place a deliberate policy to take development to rural areas, this trend will continue. It is therefore, encouraging to note that the President, in his speech to Parliament talked about the Government’s plan to create employment opportunities in rural areas. My prayer is that this becomes a reality.
Interruptions
Madam Speaker, much has been said on education by those who have spoken before me, but allow me also to talk about the fallen standards of education. I will do so by painting you the very grim picture of my constituency. Malole Constituency has sixty-six basic schools of which thirteen are upper basic schools, forty-two community schools, one secondary school and one high school. Most schools have no desks and pupils have to make do with rudimentary benches or sit on mounds.
Madam Speaker, there is also a critical shortage of teachers to the extent that the pupil teacher ratio is in some cases is 200:1.
Hon. Opposition Member: Shame!
Mr Munaile: Madam Speaker, despite this depressing scenario, Malole has not even been allocated teachers in the just ended recruitment excise.
Added to this is the lack of classroom space and teachers’ accommodation. Some schools were built in the 1960s to accommodate Grades 1 to 4, still have two classrooms and one teacher’s house. Despite having been upgraded to enroll up to Grade 7, nothing else has changed.
Madam Speaker, the introduction of basic schools and community schools has served only to further dilute our educational standards. Upper basic schools are staffed by teachers who are ill qualified to teach Grades 8 and 9. In addition, there are no laboratories, no technical drawing facilities, no workshops and tools for subjects like woodwork and metal work. The first time a pupil from a rural school is exposed to these facilities is when he or she gets to high school level.
Madam Speaker, this sad situation I have just outlined, is evidenced by the mushrooming of community schools. Despite their lack of teachers and infrastructure, community schools have become an alternative due to Government’s failure to provide adequate regular schools. School structures are just muddy walls and grass for roofs. There are no desks and the floor is as bare as the ground outside. If this is the Government’s strategy of meeting the Millennium Development Goals in education, I submit, we will need another millennium to realise these targets.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile: Madam Speaker, I would like to echo what other honourable members have said on the health care delivery system in our country. This country has inadequate health facilities without drugs and qualified staff. Our health centres have become merely lay-bys on the way to eternal life for many Zambians.
Hon. Opposition Members: Shame!
Mr Munaile: Madam Speaker, it is no wonder that we now have an army of self-imported mobile clinics, dressed in red and purple gear and sandals fashioned for motor vehicle tires from a certain East African Country offering all kinds of concoctions to our people in shop corridors. It shows how much our people have lost confidence in the Government’s ability to deliver health services to them.
Interruptions
Mr Munaile: Madam Speaker, in my constituency, people have to walk long distances to access what little there is by way of medical care. In Mpanda area, those referred to nearest the hospital, many kilometers away in Kasama, have to endure a long wait for transport and suffer an even longer and bumpy ride on a corrugated road to get there. Many patients have turned from malaria or maternity cases into brought-in-dead cases by the time they reach the hospital.
Hon. Opposition Members: Shame!
Mr Munaile: It is for this reason that I wish to earnestly appeal to the Government to consider upgrading Kayambi Rural Health Centre to hospital status. This will alleviate the suffering that the people of Mpanda have to endure.
In the same vein, I wish to appeal to the Government to consider building a district hospital in Mungwi. Being sick is bad enough. People who are unwell should not have to suffer the added discomforts of having to travel long distances to find help. This is really inhuman.
Madam Speaker, it is not unusual in my constituency to meet pregnant women walking more than thirty kilometers to clinics for antenatal care. Men have now become unauthorised traditional birth attendants due to circumstances beyond their control. This is taboo in our culture.
Hon. Opposition Members: Shame!
Mr Munaile: Any decent humanitarian Government would develop a strategy to deal with the fallen standards in health care delivery and I implore the MMD Government to do so.
Madam Speaker, while the MMD Government has received accolades for its performance in the agricultural sector, a lot still needs to be done. In certain areas in my constituency, farmers have no access to critical faming inputs like fertiliser and seed. To get around this, many have now reverted to the destructive Chitemene System, which the Government has worked so hard to discourage. No one in this august House needs any reminding about the dangers to our environment paused by this system of farming, but people cannot be blamed for resorting to the only means available to them to survive. Despite efforts made by the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources to stop this system, rural people who have no other means than land to survive will not wait forever for fertiliser and seed to be delivered to their homes, they will resort to the tried and tested Chitemene, however destructive, because they have to survive.
The import of this is that there are now large tracts of land that have been left bare of natural vegetation. Unless the Government acts to discourage rural people from resorting to the Chitemene system of agriculture, we can expect to see a very serious problem of environmental degradation taking root across the country.
Madam Speaker, those who do manage to defy the odds and grow a crop of maize or rice often find that they are unable to sell their produce. As I speak, there are many farmers in Malole Constituency still stuck with the produce from last season and they are somehow still expected to produce again this farming season. Surely, this is mockery of their sweat and toil.
Madam Speaker, about the quality of road network in Malole Constituency, one is tempted to say, the least said about the subject, the better. As the area Member of Parliament, I cannot, but speak about this problem. Simply put, a country’s road net work is the artery that pumps the lifeblood into its social and economic sectors.
Without decent roads, it is impossible to get any kind of service delivered to the communities whether in agriculture, education or health. Nor can there be any meaning to interaction among our people. In my constituency, the quality of road is there. In the rain season, it gets absolutely appalling.
Madam Speaker, as a matter of urgency a few areas must be attended to. The Bridge on Kalungu River in Chitimukulu needs to be worked on before we have tragedy there. It is also time the Government tarred the road from Mungwi to the Isoka Turn-off on Great North Road and replace the pontoon at Mbesuma on Chambeshi River with a proper bridge.
Madam Speaker, one of the most important roads in the constituency is the road from Nseluka to Kayambi. This is the road that could be connected to the Mbala/Nakonde Road at Kapwila leaving travelers short options to Nakonde and Kasama. The road has not been worked on for many years. About three years ago, the Catholic Mission at Kayambi put up K60 million to help fix the road.
It is sad that this project went only as far as that money could go before the Government failed to honour its side of the bargain by not putting up K250 million as it had promised.
Madam Speaker, the President talked about the importance of Local Government in service delivery to our people. I wish to assert that it is very difficult for councils like Mungwi in Malole Constituency to provide the required services due to lack of resources.
Since the Government sold houses and water provision given to sewerage companies, the two major sources of revenue, most rural councils have been limping.
Therefore, expecting them to provide quality service to the community when their monthly revenue cannot even meet their monthly wage bill, let alone the chain of retirees and employees who go without pay months on end, is unrealistic.
Mungwi District Council has not paid its employees for twenty-eight months. The average monthly income is K2 million against a monthly wage bill of K16 million. It is therefore, incumbent upon this Government to find ways of lifting these councils out of the doldrums.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile: The system of Local Government needs reform.
Madam Speaker, allow me to say something on the Constituency Development Fund.
I doubt that the K30 million given to constituencies yearly at present can bring any meaningful development. The needs of constituencies especially the rural ones are enormous and any hon. Member who thinks otherwise is being insincere. Therefore, the constituency development fund given at the moment is meagre and needs to be increased to at least K100 million per year.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Madam Speaker, as an active sportsman, a former Zambia international soccer coach and player and as sports administrator, sport is very close to my heart. It disappoints me therefore, that while we have so much talent in the country, there is no organised way of harnessing this great potential.
Physical education may appear on the syllabi of our schools, but it is almost taken as an optional subject because few schools are properly equipped in both material and personnel to implement the programme.
Rural areas like Malole are particularly disadvantaged in this matter and few of them have even a football to play with and yet, some of Zambia’s greatest footballers came from rural schools in the day when physical education was compulsory and sports programmes were supervised with the same earnestness as arithmetic and science.
Madam Speaker, the lack of basic sporting infrastructure across the country is appalling and is one of the biggest factors to the slump we have seen in our sporting standards. The demise of ZCCM and other parastatals has made the situation even worse.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Munaile: Sports is no longer just a pass time activity, it is a multi-billion dollar industry breeding young millionaires in all kinds of sport disciplines. Yet, in Zambia, we still treat sport as something to do while we wait for something more important to come along.
Madam Speaker, we need to change this approach and start to take deliberate measures to produce athletes who can bring home gold medals and world titles as other African nations are now doing. This requires that we begin to offer sponsorship and bursaries based on sporting ability to the most promising pupils and students. It was encouraging to read in the papers that the President has managed to get the Chinese Government to build us a multipurpose sporting facility.
There have been so many false starts on this front that we lost the Dag-Hammerskjoeld Stadium in expectation of a better stadium. So we will not celebrate this news until it is translated into action.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order!
Business was suspended from 1615 until 1630 hours.
Mr Munaile: Mr Speaker, with the World Cup coming to this part of the world for the first time in just four year’s time, a modern football stadium might get us a few World Cup Qualifiers to come and play here. How I wish Zambia could be a world spectacle.
Mr Speaker, Malole Constituency despite its large size has only one police station at Mungwi and no police posts. Previously, there were police posts at Chitimukulu and Makasa, but unfortunately, the officers were removed a long time ago and buildings are just falling apart. The area is too big for the officers at Mungwi to manage as they are understaffed. I wish to earnestly appeal to the Government to reopen these two police posts to bring back order as the crime rate has reached alarming proportions.
Mr Speaker, in conclusion, His Excellency, the President talked about reconciliation in his address to this august House. Indeed, a divided House will not stand. Let us all put national interest above personal and political affiliations.
In the same vein, I wish to remind the President that on several occasions he has said that he intends to be a President of all the people not just for those who voted for him. The people of Zambia will judge him by those words. They expect action to return prosperity to their country.
Mr Speaker, I thank you.{mospagebreak}
The Deputy Minister for Luapula Province (Mr Chinyanta): Mr Speaker, I am most grateful to you for giving me this chance to make a modest contribution to the debate on the Motion of Thanks.
Mr Speaker, may I also join other hon. Members who have spoken before me to congratulate you on a beautiful and comfortable re-election as Speaker of the greatest political institution in our land, Parliament. Your return, more than anything else, signifies the consolidation and enhancement of the democratic process started by us Zambians in 1991.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: Mr Speaker, may I take this opportunity also, to congratulate the Deputy Speaker on her unanimous and pleasant election. I am confident that the affairs of this House are in tested and competent hands.
I also wish to congratulate the Deputy Chairman of Committees of the whole House on his re-election. I know that he will continue to offer his excellent and invaluable service to this august House.
Let me also pay my sincere and great tribute to all those who were in the last Parliament. Some are with us and others have fallen out. I thank them for their efforts and contributions that they made during their tenure as Members of Parliament. I personally value what they did and I promise to build on all those great and good things they did during their tenure as Members of Parliament.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: To you fellow Members of Parliament in the MMD to which I proudly belong, the Patriotic Front, the United Democratic Alliance and those who chose to be alone, the Independent, …
Laughter
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: … I say congratulations and I look forward to an interesting five years.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: To my party the MMD, I want to pay tribute to the President and National Executive Committee (NEC) for their consideration that I could be given a chance to contest elections in Mambilim …
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: … even at the last minute. My victory clearly demonstrates that your decision was correct.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: My victory also signifies how strong I am as a politician in that area.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: That even the poisonous propaganda of tribal and regional politics that are sadly being introduced in my province could not shake me.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: Mr Speaker, I want to declare that the people of Luapula are not tribalists either in nature or character.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear! Machungwa!
Mr Chinyanta: It is sad that because of selfish individuals who want to use political mileage to gain power, innocent people are being divided.
I want to appeal to all hon. Members of this House, especially those from Luapula to look at the fundamental reason we are here.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: It is to serve the people of Zambia regardless of where they come from.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: The seventy-three tribes of Zambia are scattered all over this land, in 150 constituencies represented here. It will not work for any province to claim that they are superior to others.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: The defining factor here is that we are all Zambians.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: Therefore, our focus should be on development. The cry of our people to is have roads, water and sanitation, education, health and housing. People want economic empowerment and to tackle poverty aggressively.
For this reason, I wish to join other hon. Members who have spoken before me on reconciliation. Let us not, as political leaders, plant seeds of hatred in our people when we speak. Despite our diverse views, we should come together as Zambians and talk to one another.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: I am pleased to say that so far, I have seen very good interaction and tolerance amongst all hon. Members of this House.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: Let us preach the same message to our people when we visit our constituencies.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear! Kambwili!
Mr Chinyanta: To the Zambian people, I thank you indeed, for being such peaceful people.
Mr Speaker, I want also to take this opportunity to thank the President for appointing me as Provincial Minister for Luapula Province.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: My appointment underscores the tremendous confidence and trust that the President has in me to provide leadership in this province.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: I pledge to provide a strong leadership that is accountable and transparent …
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: … enough to allow all stakeholders in the province to turn to me for support and guidance.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: I will provide a proactive voice for the people of my province and define common problems with solutions that will bring meaningful development to the province.
Mr Mubika: Tell them they do not know!
Mr Chinyanta: Mr Speaker, let me, at this point, highlight some of the developmental programmes that the New Deal Administration under the leadership of President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, SC. has put in place for Luapula Province.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: In terms of road infrastructure, work on the Kashikish/Lunchinda Road has commenced. A total of K2 billion has been released for paving works.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: However, as it has been debated before in this House that people in the province are not impressed with the pace at which the contractor J. J. Lowe is doing the work.
Hon. PF Members: Now you are talking!
Mr Chinyanta: I, therefore, urge the Government to seriously consider …
Interruptions
Mr D. Mwila: But you are the Government!
Mr Chinyanta: … changing the contractor on this road so that the works can speed up.
The contractor is already on site for the rehabilitation of the Pedicle Road and works are progressing.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: With regard to the construction of the Chembe Bridge, the contractor China Henna is already on site.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: When this bridge is constructed, it will signal the enormous potential that exists in this province, not only in agriculture, but also in other economic areas such as mining, hydro-electricity power and tourism, which need to be tapped.
Mr Speaker, I wish to pay tribute to President Mwanawasa on behalf of the people of Luapula Province. It had to take him to give the people of this province the Chembe Bridge. For over forty-one years, hon. Members of Parliament from Luapula had been crying in this House to have that bridge constructed, even to Governments that we perceived to be our own, but it was to no avail.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: It takes a listening President who knows how to priotise issues to …
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: … make such a decision. Personally, this is an indication that President Mwanawasa’s leadership is far above regional and tribal politics, …
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: … being championed by people who failed to deliver that important infrastructure.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: Still on the road infrastructure, I wish to state that re-gravelling, drainage restructure and grading has continued on the Mansa/Luwingu Road at a total cost of K3.6 billion.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: However, more needs to be done on the grading of feeder roads throughout the province.
Hon. PF Members: Shame!
Mr Chinyanta: This will boost agricultural activities in the province.
In agriculture, the New Deal Government is spearheading palm oil production in the province.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: The production of palm oil is expected to boost the economy and increase employment, especially in Mwense, Kawambwa and Chiengi Districts.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: Agricultural activities will be boosted even more when the Luena Farm Block in Kawambwa is opened up for development.
Hon. Government Members: Hear, hear!
Interruptions
Mr Chinyanta: The lay out plan for this farm block is a total land of 100,000 hectares consisting of one core venture of 10,000 hectares, two large commercial farms with 500 hectares each, fourteen medium commercial farms, 137 commercial farms and 824 small commercial farms. So far, various surveys for wells, dams and canals are going on.
The problems experienced in the last few years with regard to crop marketing, the Government through the Food …
The Deputy Chairperson: Order! Hon. Members are consulting each other loudly as a result, I cannot hear the hon. Member debating. May you consult quietly, please?
May the hon. Minister continue, please?
Mr Chinyanta: The Government through the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) established twenty-eight satellite depots in the province. FRA is also currently purchasing cassava through these satellite depots. The upward increase trend in crop production is a signal of the enormous potential that exists in this province, especially that the province has good rainfall and fertile soils.
Mr Speaker, may I now talk about Education.
Zambia’s ambition to meet the millennium development goal on quality education by 2015 remains a challenge. In Luapula, a good number of schools have received a fair share of support and investment from BESSIP and ZAMSIF funds towards infrastructure. However, the province is not exempted from the general problem of increased enrolment levels without matched improvement in quality as evidenced by the low pupil teacher ratio, low book pupil ratio and low scores of achievement in tests. I, therefore, appeal to the Government to send more teachers to my province to address the critical shortage of teachers in our schools. The province notes with sadness that only one district, Milenge, out of eight districts was catered for during the last teacher deployment.
Hon. Members: We shall give you!
Mr Chinyanta: Our prayer is that more consideration be made to send teachers to all districts in the next teacher deployment.
Health in terms of priority can only be compared to education. In fact the two go together in enhancing development of a country. It is gratifying to note that the Government has remained committed to the implementation of health reforms aimed at providing quality health services to all Zambians. I, therefore, commend the Government for the commitment to build a first rate hospital in Samfya and Chiengi.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chinyanta: I am sure my province will also benefit from the subsequent construction of forty health posts throughout the country. Mr Speaker, in conclusion, may I thank the President for his inspiring speech to this House. His speech clearly demonstrates that despite our diverse views, we are all talking about the best way of serving the Zambian people, therefore, I echo the words of our President who has, on a number of times, encouraged us to seriously work on issues that will benefit the people irrespective of their origins, the basis for which this House was established.
Hon. Members of this august House will agree with me that when we meet on occasions like this, we do find that there is a great sense of political humility and motivation. I have no doubt that this excellent environment will avail all of us chances to freely share potential developmental ideas that will make our country move forward as indicated by our Fifth National Development Plan.
Mr Speaker, as for me, I promise to provide a debate that will deal with real issues and build upon what our colleagues in the last Parliament did in terms of positive development. I also promise to debate on issues that will greatly benefit the people of Mambilima and the province at large.
I thank you.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala (Chilubi): Mr Speaker, I thank you for according me this rare and golden opportunity of making a maiden speech in this august House.
In the first place, I wish to congratulate the hon. Mr Speaker on his re-election as Speaker of this House and secondly I wish to salute the Deputy Speaker on her being elected as Deputy Speaker of this House. Furthermore, I want to salute you for your re-election as Deputy Chairperson of Committees of the whole House.
Mr Speaker, it would not be prudent for me not to salute the people of Chilubi who gave me a great vote during the 28th October, 2006 elections and for this I am very thankful to them. Sir, I promise not to betray them while serving as their representative in this august House.
Mr Speaker, my speech would be incomplete if I did not salute the great son of Africa and president of the Patriotic Front …
Interruptions
Mr Chisala: … who is the president of the fastest growing party on the continent of Africa…
Hon. Patriotic Front Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: … according to the statistics obtained by the University of Zambia.
Hon. Patriotic Front Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: I repeat that I wish to salute the President of the Patriotic Front who is the leader of the fastest growing party on the continent of Africa, Mr Michael Chilufya Sata…
Hon. Patriotic Front Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: To him, I am thankful for having accorded me an opportunity to stand as Member of Parliament for Chilubi. Mr Speaker, I wish to state that the people of Chilubi did a great job in identifying their plight, which they have faced since Independence. In this regard I wish to state the issues according to sectors and I will begin with education.
Mr Speaker, we all understand that education plays a cardinal role in the development of any country and I quote the Presidential Speech:
‘Education provides the critical key necessary for the development of any nation’
Mr Speaker, the education sector is one of the most neglected among the key ministries in this country. Mr Speaker, many Government schools, particularly in rural areas, have no infrastructure or the infrastructure available is beyond human description.
Hon. Patriotic Front Members: Shame!
Mr Chisala: Mr Speaker, in certain schools, our teachers do not have their own accommodation, but are subjected to private arrangements for their accommodation and yet this is a responsibility of the Government. Mr Speaker, even when such arrangements are put in place, it takes a considerable number of years for a particular teacher to get the housing allowance and yet the Government is fully aware that a teacher gets a monthly salary almost equivalent to that of a slave.
Mr Speaker, for teachers to get their extra duty allowances, housing allowance, examination allowance, double class allowance, leave benefits and many other allowances, they have to make uncountable trips to the office of the Permanent Secretary in Lusaka and this has been resulting in work stoppages because teachers are most of the time demotivated.
Mr Speaker, it is unhealthy to have such a trend in place, therefore, it is important that the Government looks into this seriously and bring the situation to normal. Mr Speaker, the best example is that of Chilubi District where we have 70 percent of the middle basic classes being run by one or two teachers, in certain cases by teachers who are not even confirmed in appointment. The best examples of such schools are Fube Middle Basic School, Mayuka Middle Basic School, Matimba Middle Basic School in the east of Chilubi District on the border with Kasama/Mpika Districts.
Mr Speaker, Chilubi has forty-two Government schools and fourteen are community schools. Chilubi has only a number of 201 Government teachers while we need 481. You can see the margin among the teachers available and the teachers required in the district. Mr Speaker, while I agree that the Zambian economy is donor driven, I wish to advise that it is high time the Government did away with a one year teacher training programme and revert to the old system of two years training.
Mr Speaker, I see no justification why Chilubi should be subjected to the high degree of marginalisation in this sector. Sir, the secondary school initiated in 1988 by the Kaunda regime is still incomplete and yet four staff houses and two classroom blocks are at wall plate level. What special reason is there for the Government’s failure to complete it when the Government is fully aware that that is the only secondary school to serve our children in the district?
long before even when Chilubi High School was opened in 1996. Therefore, Mr Speaker, the Government should find a remedy to this problem.
The Deputy Chairperson: Order! Hon. Members both on my right and left, let us lead by example. I expect the Deputy Ministers actually to lead by example …
Interruptions
The Deputy Chairperson: Order! Let us lead by example and listen to what he is saying and if we have anything to comment we can do that later. As the person in the Chair I would like to discourage hon. Members commenting any how because it has become a norm for hon. Members to just comment anytime they feel like when somebody is debating. This is not the way this House should conduct itself. Can we please listen.
Hon. Member, please continue.
Mr Chisala: Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your protection. The conditions of service for lectures at the University of Zambia and the Copperbelt University are quite pathetic in the sense that they get meager salaries. This also applies to lecturers in colleges. Therefore, there is need for the Government and particularly, the hon. Minister responsible for the Ministry of Education to look into their plight.
Mr Speaker, similarly, the Government needs to review the allowances given to students at the two universities. There is also need for the Government to introduce at least a K50,000 to be given to teaching students in colleges because these students teachers go through a lot of hardships. The Kaunda regime used to give us something like K20, so we would like that to come back to life, Mr Speaker.
Mr Speaker, there are so many standards officers or educational officers in districts, but these people have lamentably failed to discharge their duties due to the fact that they do not have transport. So, the hon. Minister responsible for Ministry of Education should look into that.
Mr Speaker, on the health sector, since independence Chilubi District has never had a medical doctor or a mortuary. Therefore, I am appealing to the hon. Minister of Health to ensure that at the district hospital a doctor, mortuary and like are availed to the people of Chilubi because without the people of Chilubi, this Government was not going to be in place as they are the ones who played a very instrumental role during the struggle for independence.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Hon. Government Members: Aaah!
Mr Chisala: Mr Speaker, it would be prudent for the Government to seriously consider Chilubi District for the construction of this hospital by next year along side with Lusaka, Lufwanyama and like.
Mr Speaker, on the issue of Local Government, we all know that local authorities play a very important role and I quote the Presidential Speech
“The major challenges that we face as a nation in this regard are mainly of financial nature and lack of capacity in local authorities to provide quality services.”
Mr Speaker, we are facing such constraints in that all qualified personnel are only interested to work in urban areas and shun going in rural areas. I am, therefore, proposing that the Government should change the trend, the central Government should start paying the Chief Officers in councils because these officers definitely will take up the challenge of going to serve the local communities other than the way things are at the moment. We want to see these people who are educated to go and serve the rural community as the way things were during Kaunda era.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: Mr Speaker, in light of this, I wish to emphasise the point that Chilubi as a district has no Council Secretary, Deputy Council Secretary, Director of Works and Planning Officer. This shows that this Government is not taking care of the Zambian people.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala Mr Speaker, I wish to request the Government to look into this issue seriously, and really, you can see that Chilubi in fact has only 27 workers, but these workers have gone for forty-nine months without getting their pay …
Hon. Opposition members: Shame!
Mr Chisala: … and the wage Bill stands at K706 million.
Hon. Government Members: Only.
Mr Chisala: Now, where is the ability to perform, surely? In the case of a few luck ones, these are council workers, and their means of survival is only through beer brewing. Why should these people be subjected to this kind of treatment in their own motherland, and yet, there is a government calling itself a caring, responsible and listening government. So, where is the ability to perform and where is it being exhibited, Mr Speaker?
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: The awarding of contracts to local contractors must be looked into seriously. Let the councilors get involved in rewarding the contracts because this system of awarding contracts which is being done by Lusaka based people is doing as a disservice at the local community. The Government needs to look into this seriously.
Mr Speaker, the substandard road rehabilitation being done between Luwingu/Nsombo is something that has brought shame to the Government. After all, this time as I am talking they are not even on the site, therefore, this problem should be looked into seriously. The Kasama/Luwingu road must be looked into because we need to be linked to Mansa.
Mr Speaker, the issue of land is a very serious issue and the Government must look into it. There is a boundary dispute between Luwingu/Chilubi and Chief Chiwanangala/Shimumbi and it has remained unattended to. So, the Government should come in to solve that boundary dispute. In view of this, three lives of people have been lost in Chief Chiwanangala’s area, but the Government has kept quiet.
Mr Speaker, on the issue of agriculture while I appreciate, it is important that the Government should pay the people that sold their crops to Food Reserve Agency (FRA). I wish also to emphasise that the issue of tourism must be looked into in Chilubi.
The issue of the Constitution, Mr Speaker, is a very important that it must be solved immediately. Having qualified to HIPC initiative should not be celebrated because as at now we have not seen any tangible fruits. We want to see tangible results before this august House and Members of the Executive Committee should see to it that the Government delivers goods and services. That is why you were given the mandate you people across there. Had it not been for the Government’s failure the majority of Zambian people were going to give you at least a reasonable vote, and in this vein, I am here to salute the people of Lusaka ….
Hon. Government Members: Aah!
Mr Chisala: … Copperbelt and Northern provinces for supporting the great man Michael Sata by giving him a reasonable number of votes.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear! Kokolapo!
Mr Chisala: On the issue of energy, Mr Speaker, it is important that the Government should provide power to the people of Chilubi. Our chiefs Chiwanangala and Matipa need to have power for consumption purposes.
Hon. Opposition Member: Hammer!
Mr Chisala: Mr Speaker, this issue has been dragging for too long a period, it started as far back as 1996, but up to now the people of Santa Maria where we have a mission hospital have not been availed with power, and yet, the distance there is only 16Km.
Mr Mtonga: Shame!
Mr Chisala: Funds were allocated in 2002, but where the money went nobody knows.
Interruptions
Mr Chisala: We need this to be availed to the Members of this august House.
Mr Chisala Shame!
Mr Chisala: Therefore, I am requesting my elder brother who is responsible for the Ministry of Energy and Water Development, Hon. Mutati, to come out in the open and tell me the whereabouts of this money.
Mr Speaker, transport is a very critical issue that must be seriously looked into by the Government. Chilubi as a district has no water transport to serve the seven constituencies around Lake Bangweulu region. There are about seven constituencies that are served by Bangweulu Water Transport, but at the moment the boat the people use is grounded. I wanted the hon. Minister of Communications and Transport, Mr Daka, to hear this but he is not in this House. It was grounded about five weeks ago. So, people have no means of transport to use from Samfya to Chilubi. If the MMD was really a serious Government, why can they not take care of the people who voted them into office?
Hon. PF Member: Tell them!
Mr Chisala: Sir, with regard to the Zambia Police Service, I would like to inform the hon. Minister of Home Affairs that the people of Chiluba have been marginalised for too long. There are four police officers against 80,000 people. How do you expect them to work?
Hon. PF Members: Shame!
Mr Chisala: Mr Speaker, crime in this area is extremely high. I would like to request the hon. Minister to send a reasonable number of at least twenty policemen to Chilubi because that is what the establishment is saying. I would also like to urge him to send at least one boat and a vehicle on the main land.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: He should also make sure that those policemen serving in rural and urban areas are not slaves of the Government. They have been doing a lot of work. The amount of work they do is not equivalent to the salaries that they get.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: Where is the justification and fair play if such things are not looked into?
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: These people need an increment of not less than 100 per cent with effect from next year.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: This is because these uniformed officers are doing a great job for this country. In addition, they get a meagre risk allowance of K50,000. Surely, is it normal for one to be given such a risk allowance? Look at the amount of work they do. Can we not feel ashamed and be sympathetic to these brothers and sisters? I would like to request the hon. Minister responsible to give them a 100 per cent increment as well.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chisala: Mr Speaker, as regards Zambia Information Service, I would like to urge the hon. Minister responsible to see to it that Chilubi is given officers to run it. Right now, there is only one Campaign Van Operator who is manning the office. Therefore, we are requesting that this issue be looked into seriously.
Sir, I wish to request the Office of the President to look into the plight of Zambians. They can do this by slashing the number of cabinet ministers. If you know that Zambia is a poor country, why do you have over twenty ministers instead of fifteen?
Interruptions
Mr Chisala: I am proposing that it be slashed to fifteen. For what purpose did you create a gender ministry? It has no purpose.
Hon. PF Members: Hammer!
Interruptions
Mr Chisala: Mr Speaker, the office of the district administrator must also be looked into. The district administrative officer has no purpose in that office according to the job description. The issue of the constitution must be looked into seriously. We want a constitution by next year. The Delimitation Commission should also be resumed. We want the boundaries to be reviewed.
In conclusion, I advise the Government to look into these issues seriously.
I thank you, Sir.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!{mospagebreak}
Mr Mweemba (Magoye): Mr Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity to thank you for affording me an opportunity to make contributions to the debate on His Excellency the President Mr Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, SC’s opening Address.
Sir, before I begin to highlight some salient issues from the Presidential Speech, I wish to first of all, thank the people of Magoye Constituency for giving me this opportunity to come to Parliament. I also wish to thank my Party, the United Party for National Development under the UDA and its President Mr Hakainde Hichilema for having adopted me as their candidate in Magoye Constituency.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Mweemba: I would also like to congratulate my fellow elected and nominated hon. Members of Parliament.
Mr Speaker, let me now take this opportunity to congratulate you and the Deputy Speaker on your election to your esteemed positions. Your re-election demonstrates the trust and confidence the hon. Members of Parliament have in your ability to conduct the business of this House in a firm but fair manner. Similarly, the election of Madam Deputy Speaker is the confirmation of the confidence this august House has in the ability of Zambian women who rise to take up decision-making positions in our country.
Sir, allow me to also congratulate the deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole House on his re-election to this august House. I have no doubt that with his vast experience, all of us will greatly benefit, more especially those of us who have just been elected to Parliament for the first time.
Mr Speaker, let me now make a contribution to the Presidential Address delivered in this august House on Friday, 27th October, 2006.
Sir, our democracy will remain meaningless as along as we do not practice political tolerance in a multi-party system of governance. The Government must realise that in a multi-party dispensation, different views from all political stakeholders must be taken into consideration and respected without due victimisation. It is through this political tolerance that we can realise and promote good governance and avoid the violation of basic human rights of our people.
Mr Speaker, in the same vein, the MMD Government should be practicing what they preach. We are concerned about the latest sad development of police brutality against innocent and defenseless citizens in our country. The shootings and killings of citizens should not be allowed to continue in our country. The Government should take stock of these actions by the police. I would like to urge the MMD Government to leave no stone unturned about this and find out why our police services has become trigger-happy. We call upon the MMD Government to get to the root cause of this sad and unfortunate development in our nation.
Sir, we talk about good governance in our nation. We can only be proud if the MMD Government does not only preach democracy but also be in the forefront in implementing good governance policies that are beneficial to our citizens.
Mr Speaker, public resources must be accounted for and respected by the MMD Government. It is about time we stopped treating known plunders with kid gloves. All these people implicated in the plunder of resources should not aspire to higher offices until their cases are disposed of and have been exonerated from all wrong doing by the Courts of Law, but alas, the MMD Government has allowed suspected plunders of national resources to take centre stage in the affairs. They have laid a red carpet on the podium for individuals with suspicious intentions. They have made them look innocent and dignified as they preach on issues that are far from the truth to the nation.
Sir, I now wish to comment briefly on the economic performances and management of this country by the MMD Government. The fact that this country has attained the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) benchmarks does not mean that all is well for the citizens.
If this is a listening Government, it should have by now reduced tax. In Magoye Constituency, the Government has neglected the people. There are no medicines in clinics.
Mr Speaker, we cannot boast of the kwacha improving in value terms when our people cannot afford two meals in a day. We have to put more money in the pockets of our people. We have to create employment for the youths and at the same time tackle the ever-growing problem of street kids and crime, which is escalating everyday.
Interruption.
The Deputy Chairman: Order! Could the hon. Deputy Minister of Energy and Water Development stop the dialogue, please.
Hon. Member, continue please.
Mr Mweemba: Agriculture is the mainstay of this country. It is through agriculture that this country can have more food. I, therefore, ask the MMD Government to seriously take stock of its performances so as to reflect on how much it has done in the field of crop and livestock production, especially the cattle restocking programme and accessibility and availability of vaccines to peasant farmers.
In Magoye, the Government is doing well in its restocking programme and they expect the people to thank them. They are saying no because when Government provides cattle, they must also provide medicine, but they are not doing this. So, how can they thank the Government? As I am talking now, there is ndekete in Magoye because the Government has failed to provide medicine for cattle.
I also ask the so-called listening Government to seriously maintain and repair all feeder roads more especially in Magoye. Without good roads, the people of Magoye will be cut off from the rest of the country.
Mr Speaker, this is one of the upcoming sectors of our economy. Tourism should be exploited as much as possible just as we need to establish new industries to generate employment for our people. Tourism can go a long way in turning around the economy of this country. In view of this, we need to improve the infrastructure that is in the game parks. For example, in Magoye, if you go to Butwa, you will find fishmongers. I am sure if the hon. Minister visited this place, he can make this place a tourist attraction. I invite hon. Members to visit this area because when they visit this area, they will come back with baskets full of fish.
Mr Speaker, on the issue of staff working for the tourist centres, I urge the MMD Government to urgently look at the attitude of our staff that are in direct contact with our visitors. These workers must have a user friendly behaviour and culture. The MMD Government should work closely with regional organisations like COMESA, SADC and many other organisations that can assist Zambia to perform well in the tourism industry. I urge the Government to look seriously at this issue.
As regards a national airline, I implore the Government to think seriously re-establishing a national airline. At the moment, we do not have any. So, I ask the Government through the ministry responsible to set up an airline.
On the media, the role that was played by the public media in the just ended tripartite elections leaves much to be desired, especially in Magoye. We were not adequately covered. We cannot continue with the same mentality where the public media only covers the ruling party when the tax payers in the country expect to be informed fairly about what is happening in the nation. It is only fair that they also cover activities that involve opposition political parties and other stakeholders because we are now under the new dispensation of multi-partysm. The opposition is here to offer checks and balances to the Government that is in power. It is not fair for the voters not to be given adequate information by the media when they are paying for the television license. Of course, I sympathise with the media, which has to cover the whole country, and due to limited resources, they are unable to do this. In fact, it is difficult for voters to access newspapers easily because of logistical reasons. The price is too high. In Magoye, people who are in Konkola and Mezi have never seen a newspaper. They only saw newspapers during the just ended election campaigns. So, I request the Government to look into this issue.
Mr Malwa: Just become an agent.
Mr Mweemba: I know that you are a bad agent.
Laughter
Mr Mweemba: Mr Speaker, in view of the above, the voter is disadvantaged because the source of information is largely dependant on the public media. This is a problem because the electorate cannot make a well-informed decision when it comes to choosing leaders for this country. I, therefore, urge the MMD Government to quickly look at the Freedom of Information Bill as a matter of urgency.
Mr Speaker, the MMD Government should put in place programmes that will assist people with disabilities. We strongly feel that the President should have considered nominating one disabled person to Parliament. I am aware that people with disabilities have special needs that can only be properly understood and appreciated by fellow people with disabilities. Let me emphasise that people with disabilities are also a vital component in our democracy, especially when they are also seen in large numbers participating in the elections. I urge the Government to consider this issue because it is never too late to nominate people with disabilities to this august House.
On HIV/AIDS, let me briefly touch on the dreaded scourge ravaging our country. The MMD Government should be serious in tackling this scourge by enabling its citizens access ARVs, especially those living in rural areas. In my constituency, I want to pay tribute to Chief Hanjalika who is very much involved in tackling this issue.
I ask the Government to support him because he is doing a Government programme. Therefore, he needs its’ support.
Mr Speaker, it is common knowledge that most of our people living with HIV/AIDS cannot access ARVs. Therefore, I call upon the MMD Government to devise plans and a system where the majority of our people living with HIV/AIDS can access the ARVs. We would also like to remind those in power that it is their responsibility to provide drugs to as many people as possible so that people’s lives can be sustained. Thereby, promoting production in both rural and urban areas.
Mr Speaker, on education, Magoye is not an exception. Magoye Constituency has got only two high schools and these are Nkonkola in Chief Hanjalika, but they are dilapidated and need rehabilitation. The World Vision built Nkonkola High School and the Government took over last year.
Hon. Government Members: It is a Government Programme?
Mr Mweemba: Even if it is a Government programme, you must do more to it.
The Deputy Chairman: Order! Hon. Members, this is precisely what the Chair is trying to avoid. When somebody is speaking and you shout, you are attracting him to hit back which is disorderly. Why can we not listen and if you want to comment, keep it to yourself and find time to respond. It is becoming something else and I fail to understand this. Let us behave honourably.
Hon. Member, please continue.
Mr Mweemba: Thank you for your protection Sir.
The condition of these schools is deplorable. Since independence, some 42 years ago, the Government has not built any High School apart from the Nkonkola High School, which was built by the World Vision. Even then, it is not a school to talk about because there are no facilities that a school should have.
Mr Speaker, the only school that we can boast of in the constituency is St. Joseph’s (Chivuna) High School run by missionaries. Most of the hon. Members in this House, their children go to St. Joseph’s High School.
Hon. Government Members: No!
Mr Mweemba: Mr Speaker, my constituency covers two chiefdoms; namely Chiefs Hanjalika and Mwanachingwala. In Chief Mwanachingwala, there is no single high school, but there are basic schools that can be upgraded to high schools, for example, Munenga, Mubuyu, Magoye and Magoye Research Basic Schools. These schools have all the facilities warranting them to be upgraded to the status of High Schools. While in Chief Hanjalika, we have Chitongo, Munjile, Mainza, Kataba and Hanjalika Basic Schools the list is endless. Therefore, I implore this Government to build new schools in my constituency. The population in the area has alarmingly increased, thereby putting pressure on the few schools in the constituency. This must be done as a matter of urgency.
Mr Speaker, in Chief Mwanachingwala …
The Deputy Chairman: Order!
The hon. Member’s time has expired.
Laughter
The Deputy Chairman: I am looking on my right because I had quite a number of people who wanted to speak.
Hon. Opposition Members: They have run out of ideas.
Mr Chongo (Mwense): Mr Speaker, I thank you for this opportunity to enable me present my maiden speech. May I join other hon. Members of this House to congratulate the Speaker on his re-election to, once again, preside over matters of this House.
Indeed, I find his immense experience and unquestionable impartiality in his guidance very encouraging and supportive to, particularly, new Members of Parliament like myself.
Similarly, I congratulate Madam Deputy Speaker, and yourself on being elected to your respective positions. However, let me also hasten to say that please, try not to be partisan in your approaches when dealing with House issues …
The Deputy Chairman: Order!
Hon. Member on the Floor, when you are saying not to be partisan, you are referring to the Chair. I hope that is not what you had in mind. Can you be clear and may you continue.
Mr Chongo: I thank you for your guidance. That is not what I meant to say.
Laughter
Mr Chongo: Mr Speaker, allow me to pay special thanks and tribute to the following without whose encouragement and support, I would not be in this House today. I thank all the people of Mwense Constituency for their trust in me, which consequently culminated into their voting for and electing me as their Member of Parliament. This honour is so great considering the fact that I was, this time around, settled for, among knowledgeable and wiser prominent men and women of Mwense Constituency, a place which they all have a vision for.
Mr Speaker, I thank my wife, children and the family at large for standing with me during the campaign period.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: I also want to thank my Party President, Mr Michael Chilufya Sata, and the entire Patriotic Front membership for according me a chance to represent my people.
Mr Speaker, let me also extend the same congratulation to all hon. Members of Parliament here. I will not forget to convey special congratulatory message to all hon. Members of Parliament for MMD from Luapula and Northern Provinces. I want to tell you that our people voted on principle. You are in this House hon. Members because you are …
The Deputy Chairman: Order!
The Chair wants to get hon. Members get used to addressing the Chair. When you are saying hon. Members from Luapula, you will be asking them to respond. Say ‘the’ because you are addressing the Chair. Then if they do attempt to respond, I will stop them because you are addressing the Chair.
Continue, please.
Mr Chongo: Thank you, Sir, for your guidance.
Mr Speaker, I want congratulate them and tell them that our people voted on principle. These people are in this House because they were found to be credible.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Our people were guided by principle in order to vote for them. This is contrary to allegations from the MMD leadership that Northerners are tribal. I pity them for belonging to such a segregative camp. Even their party chairman is only thanking all people of North-Western, Western, Central, Eastern and Copperbelt Rural provinces for voting for MMD, leaving out the people of Northern and Luapula Provinces. As far as I am concerned, these people too, voted for the MMD.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Mr Speaker, some people can even proudly stand up and say, “you were saying President Mwanawasa would not have been President if we did not vote for him.”
Sir, it is very sad to hear words like, “this time around you did not vote for him but he is President” from people that are considered to be hon. Members of Parliament.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: However, the progressive minded men and women in their camp, from all corners of this country will together stand up and fight this ingratitude and the looming naked oppression. I pay special thanks and tribute to my former workmates, subordinates, colleagues and supervisors at Mufulira’s Mopani Copper Mines, particularly in the mining department for the valuable support and encouragement they gave me.
Mr Speaker, let me thank my God for sustaining me from the time I expressed interest to stand up to today. I have seen the power of God working in me. It has been a miracle for me to be in this House today.
Hon. Member: Amen!
Mr Chongo: This is the reason I believe it is God’s commission to me. I know this is a tough and rough mission, but when God sends you on a mission, he even makes sure that you have the means to succeed. Yes, I am happy that I am standing in this House now, but I want to say to Jehovah God that,
“Lord, the most important thing in politics is not to win an election, but to let your will done.”
Mr Speaker, Mwense Constituency, like most of the constituencies, has never seen meaningful development. My people have been greatly dehumanised. They walk very long distances to fetch for water. In some cases, they go as far as four kilometers just to look for this commodity. There is therefore, a very passionate appeal from my people to the Government, to quickly assist in this as the situation is getting out of hand. Mwense Constituency needs not less than one hundred and fifty boreholes just to ease up the problem.
Mr Speaker, you might have noticed that every hon. Member of Parliament who is standing up in this House is bemoaning water problems in their respective constituencies. Isn’t it then clear that this is the problem that needs urgent attention? Are we not the decision makers and planners who need to prioritise this area? Who are we waiting for to come and sort out this problem, when we know that we are the ones that are supposed to do it?
The Government has failed to take development to all areas of this country. Why then can it not be prudent to at least give people the water without which, it will have serious social and economic implications on our people.
Mr Speaker, people of Mwense Constituency have nothing to smile about from the MMD Government. As a district, Mwense has no hospital but only a Grade 2 rural health centre. Mwense District covers two hundred kilometres and it has got only one clinic at the Boma, which I believe is very shameful on the part of the Government. It has only one secondary school. There is nothing else to talk about. I wonder why this Government is talking about basic schools. These basic schools, basically, the teachers that are administering work in these schools are primary school teachers. How then, do we entrust primary school teachers to teach pupils in secondary school level. This is very shameful.
Mr Speaker, there is no single bank from which many of our workers and peasant farmers can get banking services from. It is very disheartening to find a lowly paid civil servant traveling a distance of over one hundred and thirty kilometers to Mansa. This person uses the little money that he gets to go to Mansa, get his pay and come back. By the time he is coming back, the little money that he went to get would have already been eroded.
I am therefore, appealing to the Government to look into the issue of building a bank in Mwense District. Besides, Mwense District has no proper established market. My people are resorting to selling their merchandise by the roadside, which is dangerous. I want to bring to your attention that on 31st October, 2006, we lost lives emanating from a truck that had run over the people that were selling by the roadside. Eight of the casualties are still hospital and three were killed in that same incident.
Mr Speaker, traditionally, the people of Mwense Constituency have been farmers and fishermen. I urge Government to assist these peasant farmers to find the market outside this country for their main crop which cassava. I am saying so because this crop is just lying around because they have nowhere to sell it to. People of Mwense have been appealing to the Government to assist in the opening up of canals between Luapula River, the surrounding lagoons and Dambos so that the fishing activity can be enhanced.
Mr Speaker, as a former miner, I will not fail to comment on circumstances surrounding this sector.
With regard to mistreatment of workers in the mines, I would like to mention here that there are two categories of employees in the mines. There are those that are union represented and those who are said to belong to management. This category was in ZCCM days held with great respect, but it is not so with the new investors. It is therefore, imperative for the Government to redefine management category so that our workers are not abused in the name of belonging to management.
Hon. Opposition Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: These people are usually told to resign if they complain of poor pay and conditions of service. In cases of serious complaints which these investors are insensitive to, aggrieved workers only resort to going to courts of law to seek redress.
Mr Speaker, unfortunately, the Zambian Judiciary is a worry to many. Even in serious industrial disputes, Zambian courts do not see the need to quickly dispose of cases so that harmony can be promoted in order to create a conducive working environment for enhancement of productivity.
Mr Speaker, one other aspect of concern in the mining sector is lack of seriousness by the new mine owners to invest in manpower development and training. For as long as they get the copper and the subsequent profits, it does not worry them how they achieve these.
However, it is imperative that the Government ensures that there is enough expertise to handle future challenges. We will need this expertise as a nation when investors will have had enough. This is the more reason we need to regulate which jobs we can import from outside.
Mr Speaker, let me dwell on the issue of safety in the mines. I want to say that the Mine Safety Department is seriously compromised. The fact that some shift bosses and mine captains, as mentioned by the Deputy Minster for Mines and Minerals Development (Mr Mangani) that their blasting licenses were revoked as a result of an accident that happened, this action was only taken as a face-saver after Hon. Chanda for Kankoyo Constituency complained about it in this House. We talk about safety issues compromised because we know what we are talking about because we are coming from there. If you do not listen to what we are telling you, those people will not tell their own mistakes.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Mr Speaker, on the issue of casualisation and mistreatment of workers, I would like to bring to you attention gross workers mistreatment at Mununshi Banana Scheme in Mwense.
Sir, the new private investors have employed casual workers who have worked in this capacity beyond the legal stipulated time. These workers are paid K60,000 per month whilst a few permanent workers get K90,000 per month. I request through you Mr Speaker, that the Ministry of labour and Social Security investigates and takes corrective measures.
Mr Speaker, is it this gross abuse of workers that implored American businessmen to come and invest in this country because Zambia can provide cheap labour?
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Mr Speaker, Zambia will never be a proud nation if we allow our people to be treated so.
Mr Speaker, we are in this House because we want to help in the development of our respective constituencies, districts, provinces and indeed, the country at large in all spheres of human needs. It is therefore, disheartening to hear careless statements from some politicians
Mr Speaker, through you, I wish to remind him that people of Lusaka and Copperbelt Provinces are enlightened people who made their choices on strong basis and will never be cowed down by anybody.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: The message to MMD and its leadership from Luapula and Northern Provinces is that Zambia is for all Zambians and therefore, any act of discrimination this time around in development distribution will be answered squarely.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: They will stand up and defend themselves whatever it takes.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Mr Speaker, let MMD and its leadership be reminded that people from PF strongholds are strong enough to fight any oppressive system and bring that system to its knees.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: It is only good that MMD’s resolution to overlook these regions is not a secret. Yes, we already know because we can see it.
Mr Speaker, in a democratic dispensation like ours, a leader who harbours hatred for political opponents and a leader who condones careless statements from his stewards is a drawback to the growth of a nation.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Mr Speaker, I am a bearer of the message from Zambian people. This message is simple, but important. Tribalism will never build this nation.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Let us choose our leaders for their ability and capability and not on tribal lines.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Tribalists will deprive people of Zambia to choose between youthfully energetic, innovative, democratic, visionary leadership on one hand and the experienced hardworking, passionate and patriotic politicians on the other hand. Therefore, let us unite as Opposition.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear! Tell them!
Mr Chongo: It is for this reason that I challenge all youthful men and women in this House to throw in their energies and wisdom to say ‘no’ to all that looks and sounds tribal.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Let us build this nation together.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Let us tell tribal people that we are too civilized to walk in this dark valley.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: Mr Speaker, I would like to appeal to all hon. Members of Parliament to take seriously the President’s sentiments in his speech that we must be non-partisan in our approach to nation issues…
Hon. Members: hear, hear!
Mr Chongo: …and that we must embrace in ourselves a spirit of nation reconciliation. This is cardinal to our national survival.
I thank you, Mr Speaker.
Hon. PF Members: Hear, hear!{mospagebreak}
Mr Katuka (Mwinilunga East): Mr Speaker, I would like to thank you for according me this chance to contribute to the motion on the Floor of the House.
Mr Speaker, first and foremost, I would like to congratulate the Speaker of the Assembly on his re-election as Speaker of this National Assembly. Secondly, I would also like to congratulate Madam Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees of the Whole House on your election to the various positions. Your election demonstrates the confidence hon. Members of this House have in your leadership.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Mr Speaker, I would be failing in my duties if I do not thank my Party, UPND for adopting me as their candidate for Mwinilunga East Constituency.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: The trust and confidence the party showed in me has resulted in me being in this House today.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Mr Speaker, I would also like to thank the people of Mwinilunga East for electing me as their hon. Member of Parliament as a time when all odds were against me.
Mr Speaker, I managed to defeat a provincial minister who was also Provincial Chairman of the MMD in the province at a time when the MMD thought they had gained supremacy in that province…
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: … creating an opportunity for Hon. Chipungu to be Deputy Minister in North-Western Province
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear! Quality!
Mr Katuka laughed.
Mr Speaker, my speech will not be complete without giving special thanks to one true son of Zambia, my party President Mr Hakainde Hichilema, popularly known as HH.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Sir, this man had only fifty-five days to cover this varsity country. Within this short period, he helped me address three meetings in my constituency.
Mr Speaker, to this energetic visionary man, I say may the good Lord give him abundant life so that he can redeem this country from the economic woos that are currently being experienced.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Speaker, it is also important that I congratulate all the hon. Members of this House that were elected and re-elected in the tripartite elections. The people have spoken and the diverse representation in this House is indeed, their choice for the next five years. We therefore, cherish this diversity as it gives unity in diversity.
Mr Speaker, having listened to the President’s Address to this nation during his inauguration and official opening of Parliament, the following issues came out prominently:
1. That our young democracy is growing as many people are participating in the political affairs of this country by voting while those vying for plot one is reducing. Mr Speaker, we had eleven Presidential candidates in 2001. This time around we had only five Presidential candidates to choose from. I am therefore, optimistic that in the next election we might have one or two. This is an indication of the rights steps our emerging democracy is taking;
2. the issue of peace, national unity and reconciliation were prominent in the President’s Address. Indeed, as I have started, the representation in this House from different political parties all with one agenda to help develop mother Zambia. Therefore, it is true that the Government in power must work for all Zambian and not only for hon. Members of the ruling party; and
3. during our orientation you alluded to the following arms of Government namely, the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. As hon. Members of the legislature, which works together with Government to enact laws, we demand that the Government shares the national wealth evenly without considering political affiliation so that we can deliver on the promises we made during election campaigns because people will not accept any things less.
Mr Speaker, the President said that he wants to leave a legacy behind since this is his last term, and that concerns raised during the election period will be reflected upon seriously with a view to implementing those that can be implemented immediately. Sir, this is the way things ought to be and I will pray to the Almighty God for the good health of the President so that his administration will address these things immediately because we want action, as the Chinese say, ‘You cannot cook rice with words’.
Laughter
Mr Katuka: Therefore, those developmental programmes that can be implemented for the people of Mwinilunga East Constituency must be implemented immediately.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Mr Speaker, the President also appealed to hon. Members to adopt a non-partisan stance, in dealing with the issues affecting the welfare of our people such as hunger, poverty, ignorance and disease. Sir, no one in his right frame of mind should contemplate turning this House into a political battlefield, for we are here to serve the people of Zambia.
Mr Kakoma: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Allow me now, Mr Speaker to present to Government through you, issues that directly affect the people of Mwinilunga in general and in particular Mwinilunga East, the constituency I represent.
Mr Speaker, I am aware that the issue on energy has come to the attention of the Hon. Minister of Energy and Water Development several times. However, I wish to state that Mwinilunga town depends on power supply from Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO) generator that is costly to maintain due to constant breakdowns. Consequently, the town experiences regular black outs. Ironically, the area receives abundant rainfall from October to April with perennial rivers throughout the year. This abundant water supply has not been taken advantage of to enhance supply of electricity in the area.
Sir, the President in his address did hint that Government has intentions to construct mini hydro-electricity supply. The missionaries at Kalene Mission are currently constructing a mini hydro plant 60 kilometres from Mwinilunga town. Government should, therefore, assist to complete the construction of this mini hydro so that Mwinilunga town could be connected to this station, instead of waiting to be connected through the National Grid as is being proposed by Government.
Mr Speaker, this proposition makes sense because currently from the information I have, ZESCO need about 110,000 litres of diesel per month to run the station twenty-four hours. This translates into more than K400 million per month but ZESCO only collects less than K10 million from there per month. We would be thankful to hear what the Hon. Minister of Energy and Water Development will react to our proposal because this kind of partnership with missionaries at Kalene Mission will lower the cost of powering Mwinilunga. I speak as a person with an engineering background. It is incredible that those forty-two years after independence this abundant resource has not been utilised.
Hon. UPND Members: Quality!
Mr Katuka: On Education, I wish to say that illiteracy levels in Mwinilunga East are very high. This could largely be attributed to two factors:
(i) No new schools have been built in a long time while the populations has increased; and
(ii) the available schools are poorly managed and largely depend on untrained teachers. Mwinilunga East has had no secondary school in forty-two years of our independence.
Mr Speaker, on mining, I wish to state that there is a lot of mining activities taking place in Mwinilunga or North-Western Province in general. With the recent announcement of gas and oil, Hon. Shake Kakoma, said his name suddenly …
Mr Kakoma: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: I wish to appeal to the Hon. Minister to review the law regarding issuing of mining licenses. Foreigners should be excluded from artisan and small-scale mining. Such levels of mining activities should be left to indigenous people. I have travelled to some foreign countries where such activities are a preserve of indigenous people. Mr Speaker, a lot of mining activities are taking place in North-Western Province and it is imperative that the indigenous people using pick and shovel are protected.
Mr Kakoma: Hear, hear! Wonderful!
Mr Katuka: Mr Speaker, I am therefore, appealing to the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development to put in a legislation that will protect the indigenous people against exploitation by the so-called investors.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Mr Speaker, on agriculture, I wish to say that while I appreciate that some people have benefited from the Fertiliser Support Programme, I feel that there is a lot still to be done.
Interruptions
Mr Katuka: Sir, I wish to commend the Minister of Agriculture and Co-operatives (Mr Kapita) through you, for his rapid response. I sent him a note last week and he responded positively and to him I say thank you.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Sir, Chief Chibwika’s areas was the largest producer of maize in the district, but due to lack of inputs, and whilst I understand very well that the Government has increased the subsidy to 60 per cent of the Fertiliser Support Programme, the people of my constituency did not benefit because they could not afford a deposit of 40 per cent due to high poverty levels.
Mr Kakoma: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: Mr Speaker, Mwinilunga as a district, can produce rice, beans, pineapples, honey, cassava and beef through small-scale farmers. What is needed is to find markets for these products because on the international market the demand for Zambian honey and pineapple concentrates is very high, especially by pharmaceutical companies and the prices are very good. Why is the Government failing to assist people to find markets?
The closure of the Pineapple Factory was an issue during the campaign as a lot of our farmers grow pineapples. The closure of the factory has affected the people adversely as they have been deprived of a ready market. They, therefore, and rightly so, demand the re-opening of the factory.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: This matter has been brought on the Floor of this House before by the previous Members of Parliament, but no action has been taken.
Mr Speaker, agriculture is about food and not just maize. Small-scale farmers will not be able to graduate to medium farmers without a financial lending institution. Therefore, Government must explore the possibility of creating a lending institution for these farmers. If the MMD Government is short of ideas, we in the UPND have ideas and we will give them.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: I, therefore, appeal to the ministers concerned to address these matters seriously.
Mr Speaker, Mwinilunga General Hospital which is also a referral hospital in the district, is manned by two medical doctors to serve a population of about 80,000 people. Consequently, the people are not receiving quality medical care. Medical equipment, medicines, bed linen etc, are in short supply. Maternity cases are being handled by traditional healers because nursing staff are inadequate.
The closure of Kalene Nursing School by the MMD Government has not gone well with the people of Mwinilunga who are demanding that it should be re-opened so that the shortage of nurses can be a thing of the past.
Mr Speaker, I wish to inform the Minister of Health, through you that, the Catholic Church has built a wonderful hospital in Chief Ntambu’s area. Currently, there is only one doctor and no nursing staff. The Government should, therefore, help them manage the hospital by providing funds and the medical staff.
Kakoma Rural Health Centre about 140 kilometres from Mwinilunga town was built in the 1970s and has only four beds to date. This facility needs to be expanded to an appreciable standard. I will be grateful to hear what the Hon. Minister of Health will say on this.
Mr Speaker, it is a mockery that user fees are being abolished and yet there are no drugs in our hospitals. The people of my constituency demand that these issues be addressed immediately.
There has been no Government hospital in Mwinilunga East Constituency in the past forty-two years of our independence. We demand that the Government builds a hospital in the area immediately.
Hon. UPND Members: Hear, hear!
Mr Katuka: On the question of infrastructure, the President in his speech to this House announced that rehabilitation and maintenance of roads countrywide would continue to be high on the agenda of Government. This will include essential bridge construction rehabilitation and maintenance.
Mr Speaker, Mutanda/Mwinilunga Road stretching over a distance of 289 kilometres is in a deplorable condition, and yet this is the road leading to the famous Lumwana Mine, which is expected to be the biggest in Africa.
Geo Tech that the Government contracted to do the patching works instead of complete resurface has not even done 50 kilometers in two years and yet production is expected to start towards the end of 2007 or 2008. How will the mine move the copper to the market? This trunk road built in the late 1970s has never been maintained and yet it is supposed to facilitate trade with Angola. Mr Speaker, I demand that this major road be rehabilitated immediately and I wait to hear what the hon. Minister of Works and Supply will say about this road when he comes to address our concerns.
Mr Speaker, I now want to talk about Mundayama Bridge. Sir, the Mundayama River runs through Mwinilunga town. The bridge on this river is made of wooden planks. Many lives have been lost because of its weak structure. I urge the Government through the Minister of Works and supply to construct a concrete bridge on this river before any more lives are lost.
Mr Speaker, most feeder roads in my constituency belong to the council and are supposed to be maintained by the council, but due to inadequate capacity of the council, they have failed to maintain them. I am appealing to the Government to invest in councils by providing them with graders so that they undertake rehabilitation works. In this way, dependency on briefcase contractors can also be avoided while empowering councils.
Mr Speaker, Mwinilunga in general and in particular Mwinilunga East has several tourist attractions whose potential has not been tapped. Recently some development took place at the source of the Zambezi. This was happening after 42 years of Independence. This, Sir, shows lack of seriousness in this important sector.
In my constituency the following are the potential tourist attractions:
(a) Lake Chibesha in Chief Kanyama’s areas. Mujila Falls in the same area;
(b) Chipuna in Senior Chief Sailunga’s areas;
(c) Lunga Game Reserve that stretches in Chief Ntambu and Chibwika. Investors who may wish to set up ranches may be encouraged; and
(d) Traditional ceremonies such as Chisemwa Cha Lunda and the recently introduced Nyawunda in Senior Chief Sailunga’s area. The rain festival in Chief Kanyama’s area.
Mr Speaker, I wish to inform the hon. Minister of Tourism that very soon I will submit to him a list of potential local investors who wish to set up lodges in these tourist areas.
Mr Speaker, I wish to advise the Government that they have placed too much weight on the private sector to do all the things even to create jobs. That is impossible given that our private sector is in its early stage of formation. Mr Speaker, those hon. Members on your right who are in the driving seat of Government should provide creative and engineering leadership so that we can create more ZAMEFAs to add value to our copper, honey, pineapples etc. in partnership with the private sector.
The Government should, therefore, get involved in the business of creating wealth. Mr Speaker, as we attempt to re-build the economy devastated by the blind liberalisation, I say, ‘no more privatisation of the remaining companies this time’ because this programme has brought death and misery among our people. In fact those who were responsible for this reckless programme ought to face the wrath of the law.
Mr Speaker, in conclusion, I wish to quote the President’s Speech during the Official Opening of the House and I quote:
‘It is my sincere desire and hope that this Parliament will be a peoples Parliament representing the national vision and not a battle ground for political parties’
Mr Speaker, I have brought a number of problems that people in Mwinilunga East face, and in accordance with the President’s speech, I appeal to hon. Ministers to address these concerns to ensure that their party does not eat the national cake alone. National wealth must be shared and distributed evenly.
Mr Speaker, I thank you.
Hon. Members: Hear, hear!
The Deputy Chairperson: Order!
(Debate adjourned)
ADJOURNMENT
The Minister of Information and Broadcasting Services (Mr Mwaanga): Mr Speaker, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
Question put and agreed to.
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The House adjourned at 1810 hours until 1430 hours on Thursday, 16th November, 2006.