By JOHN KOMBE
THE community will now benefit more from the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) because the total allocation will go towards community projects, Chongwe area Member of Parliament (MP) Japhen Mwakalombe has said.
In the past, he said, councils entitled to 20 per cent of the CDF allocation, for purposes of monitoring and evaluation, but this would no longer be the case.
Mr Mwakalombe said this when he addressed the clergy at a meeting organized by the Chongwe pastors’ fellowship.
“The funds are already insufficient and reducing them further was not helping in any way. We are glad that the move to redefine the use of the funds has been adjusted in line with Government’s vision to accelerate development,” he said.
Mr Mwakalombe said Chongwe constituency had received K1m which was not yet spent.
He therefore invited the church to make applications for projects in their communities so that money could be spent according to the people’s wishes.
He however acknowledged that the constituency was too vast to have every application considered because all the 19 wards in the constituency all had a share in the same funds.
Mr. Mwakalombe, who is also Copperbelt Minister, called on the Church to support Bill 10 as it would help address issues such as the delimitation exercise. He said that Chongwe was too big and as such dividing the constituency would help increase CDF allocations for each ward. Meanwhile, pastors’ fellowship chairman, Bishop Rodgers Mpange thanked the MP for continuing to interact with the Church in the district.
“We are grateful to God for giving us a God-fearing MP and we can only hope that, we will continue to have an MP who will be God-fearing,” he said.
He further said that the Church would always stand with the Government as it was mandated to pray and honour the leaders in Government.
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