Sun, 07 Jan 2018 13:10:15 +0000
By Hapenga Haamubbi
The recent outbreak of cholera in Lusaka and President Edgar Lungu’s direction to the military to help fight the spread of cholera, which has so far killed over 50 people in the nation’s capital and made more than 1,500 others sick since late September provide useful lessons for the rest of Zambia. The state must not take away town and city council control over street vendors. The outbreak began on September 28 last year, but appeared to die down by October 20, with fewer than five patients reported weekly until November 5. The number of cases then surged, with 136 in the week beginning November 26, the World Health Organisation reported.
Presidential spokesman Amos Chanda said in a statement that the President believed emergency measures were needed to contain the waterborne disease, including the closure of some markets. The outbreak was initially confined to densely populated parts of Lusaka where poor sanitation could aid its transmission, but the disease had now spread to low density areas, the Presidential spokesman said.
Adding that, the President was deeply concerned at rampaging advance of the epidemic and had therefore called on the defence forces to join other stakeholders … and thoroughly clean up Lusaka. The outbreak was initially linked to contaminated water from shallow wells but investigations revealed that the spread was being propagated through contaminated food, he said.
“In the last two weeks, three traders from Soweto market have died from cholera and 18 are currently under admission in cholera treatment centres,” Amos Chanda said, referring to Zambia’s largest market.
The Presidential spokesman said that all markets, bars, restaurants and other public places that posed a risk of further transmission of cholera would be closed until they met hygiene standards. Cholera is spread by ingesting faecal matter and causes acute watery diarrhoea. It can be treated with oral rehydration solution but the disease spreads rapidly and can kill within hours if not treated.
Meanwhile, President Edgar Lungu after inspecting the environment condemned the Lusaka City Council and its Mayor Wilson Kalumba for failing to bring order in the City with both inspectorate and Health departments having gone to sleep. The President said that the Mayor and his team have been in office since 2016 and there was no excuse or justification for the failure to deal with the crisis.
The President said that his heart bled to see the trading places at City Market and Soweto markets which were contaminated with dirt and faecal matters. The visibly annoyed President took a swipe at the Office of the Lusaka Mayor for ‘tolerating’ poor sanitary conditions at markets and on the streets where heaps of garbage was piling and lying un-collected. Besides, street vendors trade in areas without toilets and use drainages and open plastics as toilet effectively making the city an open toilet.
Back in September 2012, a local motor vehicle supply and service company, together with an Indian waste management equipment manufacturing company invited representatives from the directorates of public health and engineering who were engaged in liquid and solid waste management in various local authorities to a product presentation seminar at Andrews Motel, Kafue Road in Lusaka. This one day seminar was promising; opening plenty of opportunities for the local authorities and community based players to explore new avenues of waste management. As the main theme being “Keeping Zambia Clean”.
Short introductory product presentations and lease financing facility options were done in the hope that Lusaka City Council and its Waste Management Unit would act as the anchor to other prospective customers who would be interested in the products presented like mobile toilets, house-to-house garbage collection dumpers, mechanized road sweepers, garbage collection wheelbarrows, garbage container carriers, dumper placers, high pressure sewer jetting systems, suction cum blow back systems for emptying cesspit, cesspool and manhole chambers. Most of the products showcased could either be trailer or truck mounted.
Surprisingly, technocrats at Lusaka City Council and its Waste Management Unit failed to sell the progressive idea to the serving councilors then, for approval to go ahead with the project. These days not a day passes that we don’t see a minibus driver or commuter throwing litter anyhow while on the move onto the sidewalks or busy streets of Lusaka. Using drainages and open plastic bags as toilet facilities appear to be the norm now for market and street vendors selling merchandise in the City of Lusaka. And who is there to discipline them? Certainly not the Lusaka City Council officials, as the political cadres had taken over that role.
In light of the recent spread of cholera in Lusaka, I find myself once more reflecting on this issue of garbage collection and disposal after attending a seminar at Andrews Motel, five years ago. Like everyone else who watched the scenes unfolding live on television of heaps of uncollected garbage and blocked drainages, I was appalled by the behaviour of these street vendors, for littering their unorthodox business environment anyhow without any regard for hygiene. But I was not shocked. What happened with the outbreak of cholera was bound to happen. It was just a matter of time.
And although there are many factors to consider when trying to account for what happened, for me, the major reason is street vendors’ rights. The day the state decided to give street vendors their right to ply their trade on the open streets was the beginning of the end. Thanks to street vendors’ rights, Lusaka City Council health inspectors can no longer censure and discipline them. The power of the local authority, the power of the council, the power of the Waste Management Unit in the community, were all taken away by the political cadres. So what we have seen in the City of Lusaka’s cholera outbreak has been a reflection of a society in which political cadres and vendors can do as they please. No local authority official would dare discipline them for fear of being reported to the authorities as a sympathizer of the political opponents.
Thus I found it rather astonishing that as the Minister of Health Chitalu Chilufya invoked provisions of the Public Health Act and issued a Statutory Instrument 79 Public Health Act on cholera affected areas, the UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema actually had the nerve to post on his Facebook page and demand of the PF officials to respond to “Was it really prudent to corruptly acquire 42 fire engines at US $1 million each when documentary evidence shows these are just basic machines that can be bought at US $ 250,000 each? We could have saved a huge chunk of money that is desperately needed in public health and education. Our citizens must always connect the inherent corruption of our PF colleagues, which is even being admitted by fellow senior PF leadership colleagues, to how it affects our everyday lives” (as, UPND’s party chief, put it).
I mean, as I read his Facebook posting, I wondered if my eyes were deceiving me. Was that really posted by the UPND leader asking PF counterparts to tell the street vendors and soldiers what went wrong with the procurement of 42 fire tender engines? What? Was this not Zambia? The land where public procurement documents are open to public scrutiny for those who are interested? Amazingly, Hakainde Hichilema was not the only one on this nefarious and venal trajectory. Soon other opposition politicians and other players in the field joined in. And I had to laugh. Not the kind of laugh that you do when you are happy, but the kind of laugh that asks “Are you for real?”
Their political miscalculation was stunning. It may sound harsh, but sometimes I believe harsh tones have to be adopted if we are all to live in harmony. But hey, these are just the reflections of an ordinary Zambian observer.
