Today's letters

Wed, 14 Jun 2017 10:54:21 +0000

Govt should address land wrangles
Dear Editor,
The fierce condemnation and accusation of foreigners grabbing land from Zambians by the MP of Bwana Mkubwa Hon. Jonas Chanda as published by the Daily Nation on 08th June, 2017 cannot go without a comment.
If this were true, it is a grievous fault which requires serious attention with sober minds by those in authority to arrest the situation.
From the onset, the law does not discriminate as to who owns a piece of land. The procedures are in place to this effect. Once properly followed, one acquires land recognised by law as one’s own.
The crux of the matter lies with those entrusted with this process. These individuals are greedy, (Ndola City Council) and compromised, in that land belonging to individuals, has been encroached on, divided and sold to several persons with titles issued. When the legal owners of the land, whether foreigners or Zambians discover this encroachment, they seek redress. The law takes its course and squatters are evicted. People cry foul, who is at fault?
In my humble view, the Hon. Mr. Jonas Chanda was not bold enough to face the problem head on. In lieu, he did circumvent, thereby aggravating the situation as procrastination and rhetoric of appeasement is nowhere near solving this matter.
In this same caption, it is mentioned that former Ndola Mayor Davis Chiwala sold 25 hectares of land to a Somali National. If this was true, how then did this foreigner grab land from Zambians? Come on fellow countrymen, when dealing with issues of this nature, let us be objective and not subjective.
In addition, there are serious issues in the MP’s constituency where land with title has been grabbed by known council officials. The owners of the land have tried to bring it to the attention of the law enforcers but they have hit a hard rock.
These are some of the issues you should have addressed with similar force. Some of the land, the officials have demarcated and sold to Somali Nationals with impunity.
For instance, a dairy farm owned by Mr. Vashee in Itawa Ndola. The other farm belongs to Mr. Mhango along Kabwe road. The other example is a farm belonging to Mr. Greg in Minsundu. They have complained and have written letters and you, as area Members of Parliament, are nowhere to lend an ear to these people.
Mr. Khalif is Zambian, he could be a Somali national. Before you said what you said, you should have verified the following; what documents does Khalif hold? When and where was he born? When did he come to Zambia? The encroachers at Khalif’s farm were forewarned when they just started digging foundations. Your outburst in the media over this issue for lack of a better word puts you in an awkward situation.
Investigate issues before you rush to the media. Don’t embarrass the PF party and the government of the day.
Shi Mwinji, Ndola

Donor aid and governance issues: who wins?
Dear Editor,
It is one thing to say that a Zambian one-man party opposition leader was wrong to tie IMF bailout aid policy to visitation rights for incarcerated UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema. But it is equally naïve to pretend that aid has never been tied to all sorts of conditionalities that recipient governments have accepted time and again.
One-man party opposition leaders, Nevers Mumba, Charles Milupi and Mike Mulongoti gave the impression to the international community that visitation rights for incarcerated UPND leader at Mukobeko Maximum Prison did not exist in Kabwe. The reality as clarified by the Zambia Correctional Services (ZCS) commissioner general Percy Chato is that UPND vice president Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba (GBM), Chief Mukuni and Chief Hamusonde were not permitted to visit Hakainde Hichilema and only his wife, Mutinta, was allowed to take food because Saturday was not a visiting day (“GBM lying”, Daily Nation, June 12, 2017). It is, therefore, easy and appropriate for the Zambia Correctional Services to advise GBM to stop lying in order for him to gain political mileage and public sympathy locally and internationally.
Besides, Chimbokaila Correctional Facility in Lusaka had shown itself compromised with the Mast Newspaper’s leaked Hichilema’s interviews news stories and had therefore, shown itself incapable of holding the incarcerated UPND leader incommunicado in prison to the outside world as appropriate conditions of imprisonment, and therefore, caused the need for having him to be immediately transferred to Mukobeko Maximum Prison in Kabwe. Contrary to Hakainde Hichilema’s wife Mutinta, who described her husband’s transfer to Mukobeko Maximum Prison in Kabwe as an additional highly punitive treatment meant to aggravate the trauma of her husband’s already long detention throughout the Magistrates Court time at Chimbokaila Correctional Facility in Lusaka, the ZCS commissioner general professionally explained that visits to Mukobeko Correctional Facility of the accused persons by their family and friends do only take place on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
However, the incarcerated UPND leader’s wife was permitted to bring food to the accused person because her husband as a non-convicted prisoner had been permitted to maintain himself or receive from private sources at proper hours such as food or other necessities in accordance with Rule 87 of the Laws.
So, are Hakainde Hichilema’s visitation rights being abused to warrant suspension of IMF bailout package to Zambia as championed by the opposition leaders?
By all accounts, let GBM and the UPND surrogate one-man party opposition leaders, Nevers Mumba, Charles Milupi and Mike Mulongoti convince the nation and the international community to decide on the IMF bailout package to Zambia.
After all, Mutinta’s husband has a right to be treated equally under the law, and that includes equal and impartial treatment as compared with other non-convicted persons at Mukobeko Correctional Facility. On the contrary, her husband appears to have been singled out for special and highly selective treatment by GBM and the UPND surrogate one-man party opposition leaders.
Mubanga Luchembe,
LUSAKA

Sell out politicians slammed
Dear Editor,
The call by the three opposition political leaders rather dealers in the name of Mike Mulongoti, Nevers Mumba and Charles Milupi to international donors to withdraw their aid to Zambia is as a result of the devastating effect of hunger that seem to have befallen the once powerful political sycophants who lived by praising past leaders whether they were performing well or not as long as doing so would secure their source of survival.
Otherwise, there is no sane leader who could be pushing for selfish causes that would lead to increased poverty levels in the country. The desperation that we are witnessing in the opposition UPND points to one thing, a missed opportunity to rape the country of its resources by the gang of political fraudsters in the opposition party, thanks to the gallant men, youths and women in PF for defending the nation from being taken over by unscrupulous political leaders whose appetite to force themselves on Zambians is unimaginable.
Does it mean the people who voted for UPND were blind enough not to see through the ulterior motive of this gang of ungrateful beings. Now I appreciate why those who were close to the President of the Republic Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu put up a spirited fight to help him to take over the running of the country’s affairs when late president Michael Sata died, the man has transformed the way politics was conducted, no more politics of the belly, it is politics of development led by honest, hardworking and humble team of men and women.
The likes of Mike Mulongoti and Nevers Mumba will not survive in this political order because they like fast life. Actually, let them not push their lack too far, the law may reach out to them when their conduct and talk amount to undermining a democratically elected government.
Has Mulongoti forgotten how painful it is to live on handouts? The man should just start working hard to earn a living instead of praying for disaster to befall his own country. Otherwise, it will pain some of us to see him in borrowed shoes. I call on the international community to ignore these disgruntled men and continue to live in harmony as interdependent States. To citizens of our nation, I urge them to support the caring government of Edgar Lungu. Enock, Lusaka