Today's letters to the editor

Mon, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Why is UPND not condemning the City Market inferno?

Dear Editor,

I commend Nevers Mumba for being patriotic enough to regret the Lusaka City market inferno.

We expected GMB, Katuka and rest of the top UPND leadership and sympathisers like Mulongoti to not only regret but condemn that heinous act no doubt committedly their duties. UPND should know that colonial type of disobedience to wrestle power or force release of their leader is a danger to the existence of their party.

The party can be banned and its leaders confined if it becomes a danger to the peace of Zambia.  You have lost our sympathy forthwith. The party is now a destroyer of livelihood.

  AAK, Kasempa

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Gutting Lusaka City Market  is economic sabotage

Dear Editor,

Zambia’s biggest market, Lusaka City Market went in flames in the early hours of Tuesday July 4, 2017 resulting in loss of goods translating into millions of Kwacha.

The cause of the inferno is not yet known and there is an urgent need to carry a thorough investigation on the matter by the law enforcers.

From last year to-date, the country has experienced some incidences of inferno targeting vital infrastructures such as markets among other buildings.

Some of the gutted infrastructures include Kamwala Market popularly known as Luburma Market, Kanyama Local Court, District Education Board Secretary (DEBS) offices in Chilanga and the recent one being Lusaka City Market.

The affected traders of Lusaka City Market earn their livelihood from selling of their merchandise.

Some affected traders are widows while others are orphans who depend their livelihood on trading.

The heartless arsonists behind the torching of buildings in the country should be probed and brought to book to face the wrath of the law.

The act of burning buildings has gone to the extremes and it is an economic sabotage.

These acts of arson have irked President Edgar Lungu, who has expressed his disappointed and urged the police officers and other security wings to up their game in a bid to bring this lawlessness to an end.

President Lungu went straight to Lusaka City Market upon his arrival at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport from Ethiopia yesterday. He wanted to have a spot check on the extent of the damage of the gutted Lusaka City Market.

The Government should consider compensating the affected traders who lost their merchandise and equipment in the Lusaka City Market inferno. This will enable them start trading as before the calamity occurred.

 ELEMIYA PHIRI,

Lusaka.

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The issue of widening rich-poor gap

Dear Editor,

 On 21st June, 2017, President Edgar Lungu on launching the 7th National Development Plan, lamented on the rich-poor gap due to unacceptable income disparities in Zambia.

He said so because, civilization of any society is judged by the way the less privileged are looked after by the government.

In the formal employment sector, junior officers who are referred to as the poor, are subjected to meagre wages while the rich who are managers and directors, pay themselves unreasonably high salaries with a chain of fringe benefits attached to their conditions of service and the disparity is yawning like evil.

While, on the disparity between the poverty stricken rural dwellers and the affluent urban settlers, is a result of lack of social and economic amenities such as health, education, communication facilities and income generating activities for the farmer.

To mitigate this sad state of affairs, government should initiate deliberate policies of upgrading the social and economic status of the poor by accelerating the accessibility of all amenities of human needs to basic levels of health, education, human mobility and income.

The Daily Nation of 23rd June, 2017, on the Home News, carried an embarrassing revelation of how badly Zambia was doing in the fishing industry as compared to Namibia which is a semi-desert producing 552,167 mt of fish and Zambia only 80,000 mt.

It is like :In the abundance of water, a fool gets thirty’, so goes the saying.

It is an inescapable obligation of every public officer to work towards uplifting the welfare of all citizens.

Therefore, blame goes to the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock through the Department of Fisheries for failing in its mandate of improving the fishing industry.

I don’t know what the Directorate of fisheries is doing in this regard.

If the European Union Ambassador to Zambia Mariani Alessandro, can say, if approached, he would favourably consider the proposal aimed at developing the aquaculture sub-sector (Daily Nation of 27th June, 2017).

In almost every sector, government intervention is not as easy, take for instance; wildlife poaching, illegal harvesting of mukula tree, illegal mining, crop disease, human health, crime prevention, unconventional fishing etc.

But it is up to the government agency concerned to think and act beyond the vices and come up with intervening remedial measures without excuse as governments are put in office to create enabling environments to better the lives of citizens.

So, if illegal and unconventional fishing, is the reason why Zambia with 40percent of water in the region can fail to be the major fish producer.

Why not use the rural dwellers who live close to these water bodies to form co-operatives with financial assistance through the Citizen Economic Empowerment as loans for fish cages and feed.

Besides this facilitating for increased fish production, the department of fisheries through the Private Public Partnership (PPP) can invest in new ideas of value addition to fish products for export as rightly put by the Ghanaian President Akufo Addo when he officiated at the 2017 Zambia International trade fair that his country has factories in all districts.

This is what all departments of government should be striving to do, in all sectors of the economy.

Failure by the government agencies to initiate such projects for the poor, will render the quest by President Lungu to reduce the disparity gap as mere pronouncements.

Adeodatus Matafwalu,

Lusaka