By ANDREW MUKOMA
THE UPND government has been cautioned to avoid falling prey in the way the national resources will be distributed across the country.
Namwala Member of Parliament, Herbert Mapani, has noted that previously, the PF government did not share the national cake equally as witnessed with the way the distribution of farming inputs was being done.
Mr Mapani said that in other provinces, farmers were receiving between six and seven bags of fertilizer while those in Southern Province were subjected to receiving two only.
He said that what used to happen in the agriculture sector where there were some discrepancies in the distribution of farming inputs was wrong and must not be repeated by the new dawn government.
“In my maiden speech to parliament, I indicated and cited that the issue of national cake was never shared equally and I even cited the issue of fertilizer and I went further to challenge the minister then, who was in charge to tell the nation why there was this discrepancy and he had no time for that…
And the Namwala lawmaker has disclosed that his constituency still has people walking more than 20 kilometres in order to access health services.
Mr Mapani said that this is something that requires government’s intervention in order to reduce on the distances people cover.
He mentioned Bbuyu as one of the areas where patients are subjected to walk a distance of 19 kilometres to get to the nearest health centre which is Muchila health post, the situation he described as unfortunate.
The MP charged that from the previous government’s announcement of the construction of 650 health posts across the country, Namwala did not benefit from that.
“What we have in Namwala is either something that was built under CDF or community initiative. We have a huge task ahead of us and in the next four years six months, we should have somewhere to point at…there is no need of being in Lusaka, we have to get back to our constituencies and plan together with the people now that the new dawn government has increased the CDF,” he said.
