Councillors, HH differ over toilet fees

Tue, 16 Jan 2018 10:49:20 +0000

By Oliver Samboko

 THE councillors at the United Party for National Development (UPND) run local authority in Siavonga district have gone against their own party leader Hakainde Hichilema’s pronouncements calling for the scraping off of toilet fees in the wake of cholera outbreak in some parts of the country.

During a press briefing held at his residence, over the weekend, Mr. Hichilema called for scraping off public of toilet fees to stop people from using plastic bags to answer the call of nature.

Mr. Hichilema further accused the PF Government of hiding behind accusing the UPND of politicising cholera so that the opposition party could not talk about failures of the party in government.

Recently Siavonga district commissioner Lovemore Kanyama directed Siavonga town council management to reduce toilet fees from K2 to 50ngwe but his directive was opposed by councillors led by their chairman James Simataa and the entire UPND leadership including area MP Darius Mulunda.

“As a council if we had closed toilets in people’s houses then we would have no choice but to subsidise. However even the cases of cholera in the district is just the same. For us the council to arrive K2 fee we had to pass a resolution through the full council meeting.

“Kanyama has no rights to reduce fees for council paying toilets. In short he is just fighting the government, where by the councillors at local levels make resolutions and him abwela chabe to reduce the fee’s then there’s no rule of law,” said Simataa who is UPND district council chairman.

The call by Mr. Hichilema to scrap the toilet fees at his recent press briefing is going to expose the UPND on whether the opposition party means well in the fight against Cholera or they are only using the outbreak to advance their political relevance.

The contradiction between the party in the area and Mr. Hichilema over priorities on how to fight cholera has also put to test whether the opposition leader still command royalty and respect in the party he has led since the demise of its founding leader, late Mr. Anderson Mazoka.

Siavonga has so far recorded two cholera cases involving a couple and although the district has managed to contain the outbreak, lack of coordination between the UPND controlled local authority and the district commissioner Kanyama is hampering efforts to completely eliminate chances of the disease resurfacing.