Councillors stipend hiked

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 12:18:47 +0000

By MUKOSELA KASALWE

 & OSCAR MALIPENGA

GOVERNMENT has increased councillors’ allowances from K700 to K3, 000 per month across the board, Minister of Local Government Vincent Mwale has announced.

Mr Mwale said that Government through his ministry was in the process of increasing the allowances  as soon as the Ministry of Justice approved the same.

Mr Mwale, who is Chipangali PF Member of Parliament, told Parliament through a ministerial statement that his ministry had completed all the paper work and had since submitted the proposal to the Ministry of Justice.

He explained that if the proposal was approved this month, the councillors would then start getting their new allowances.

And Mr Mwale said Ministry of Finance would be in charge of paying councillors and not councils.

The minister explained that he sought guidance from the Attorney General who said that councillors were not full-time workers, hence could not draw a salary but allowances as guided under Section 71 of the Local Government Act.

“I wish to inform the House that in view of the legal guidance provided by the Attorney General, I through a Statutory Instrument, revised upwards the councillors’ allowances from K700 to K3,000,” Mr Mwale said.

Meanwhile, Government has set aside K254.3 million for infrastructure development to upgrade Chalimbana, Kwame Nkrumah and Mukuba universities to build more student hostels, libraries, lecture theatres, administration blocks and staff houses.

In a ministerial statement, Minister of Higher Education Professor Nkandu Luo said in order to quickly transform the three institutions to full-fledged universities, the ministry had decided to affiliate Mukuba university to the Copperbelt University, Nkwame Nkrumah to Mulungushi University and Chalimbana to the University of Zambia.

And Minister of Lands Jean Kapata told Parliament that following the outcome of the 22 session of the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Morocco, Zambia would access over 284 million Euros as grants and 111.5 million Euros as concessional loans to support the rehabilitation of existing hydro power stations, expansion of infrastructure, promotion of the renewable energy targets and piloting waste management bio-gas plants.