By Wesley Ngwenya
Just the other day as I passed on Independence Avenue before the fly over bridge headed into town, I saw workers digging a diversion for the huge puddle of water that accumulates yearly on that part of town. The question that always goes in my mind when I see such things is– why does the local government have to wait for the rains to come to take action? Don’t they know that at this time of the year it rains in Lusaka and that Independence Avenue floods around Kamwala?
It is such incompetence, lack of planning and direction of our leaders that perpetually drags our country steps backwards. What is actually shocking is that there is money available for such repairs on major city roads. However, the bureaucracy in local governments and their backward thinking continue to jeopardize the lives of many Zambians who use these roads. Don’t you know that it is costly for us as a nation to continue losing innocent lives as a result of poor roads in 
Lusaka? It is costly for us as a nation when motorists spend more time on the road than on work. It is costly for us as a nation when motorists have to take their vehicles to the garage before they get to the office.
On the other hand, however, we the Lusakans are to blame for negligence that is continuously exhibited by the local authorities since we all behave the same. I see this phenomenon all over the city. Despite the fact that the rains came very late this year, we waited until it actually started raining to fill the potholes in front of our yards. No wonder it is difficult for us to take the local authorities to task because we actually don’t see anything wrong. We need to inculcate a planning culture in all of us. We need to look at the calendar remember our geography lessons about seasons and plan accordingly. You never know we could teach the local government something when they see us working on our roads and yards in September?
By the way, have the local government ever thought about curbing the increasingly traffic problems that the City of Lusaka is facing? In some of the cities I lived in the United States, I noticed that the local government was always proactive in planning and implementing programs to solve future traffic problems. They had projections on the population growth as a result they also developed more housing and roads. Sometimes they developed projects that deliberately diverted traffic from using certain roads so as to reduce traffic. These projects were ten or fifteen year forecasts. They were always many years ahead. Now that’s what planning is. Can our local government in Lusaka learn from this? Absolutely!
Since our local government is so busy with other things—who knows what? I hereby give my services to them. I will highlight a few suggestions for them that I think they should undertake. 
This will not only save lives of many Lusakans but also make more money for the city.
1. Rush Hour Tolls on Independence, Church, and Great East Roads: With tolls introduced on these roads during rush hours it will see the reduction of vehicles using them. With a fee of say K20,000 per car ( Install paying booths around the fly over bridges towards town) how much money can the authorities raise in a year do the math?
2. Introduce and Encourage Motorcycles and bicycles: This will significantly reduce traffic, fuel costs, and good for our environment. Who says we can’t go green in Africa?
3. Make the railway line to Chilenje a Pavement: This means people can walk, jog, and cycle to town which will create less congestion on the main roads— no motorized vehicles.
4. Connect the Chilanga to Lusaka International Airport with a Toll Expressway: This will mean you do not have to go through the city to go north, east or west. Plus heavy goods vehicles can use this.
These ideas will definitely put a new face to the city and we are all bound to smile. The question though is whether our authorities are capable of coming up with such ideas or better let alone implement them? What do you think readers? Any other ideas?
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Whats the point of paying road tax when the roads are like this/Despite even levying motorists at the pump stations so the gvt can improve our roads nothing ever happens.Its shameful for a capital city to look like this
By the way i forgot to say iam number one today as per tradition of some bloggers
this is very sad..while others ar gettin salary increments…
That’s the biggest port-hole I’ve ever seen! This is why I would never buy a Mercedes to drive in Zambia, it’s like trying to teach a baby to walk on broken glass.
I sort of agree with you on the toll booth thing but I think K20,000 is too absurd. I think that is too much of a fee to pay. If you add K20,000 plus high fuel prices and also insurance, you will be asking too much of the motorists.
On the toll booth thing, let them apply for what I call a transport plan on busy roads. What do I mean by transport plan?? [Geez Wesley, you are making make a long post]. Well I will start at the core of the issues. In most OECD countries, there are alternatives to road transport. One can take the train (subway/sky-train) whereas in Zambia, no such luxury exists.
A transport plan will be a plan that consumers as well as businesses can apply for if they [tbc
The govt needs to have fiscal discipline, they should learn to use money for the intended purpose. This is the problem when you dont decentralise operations. Fuel levy and road tax should go straight to the user departments and not through all the beuracracy and red tape of the govt where it ends up paying some allowances to some unproductive official. Apart from the roads, look at the buildings shown in the picture, this is what I was talking about yestaday…no standards…Zambia needs to change.
am no. 4 This just shows a tip of an ice berg. the problems highlighted by the article are a mere manifatstaion of the many years of the state of disrepair that our social infrstructure finds intself in. This can be attributed to a nunber of variou but reinforcing factors including , lask of investments in the local goverments system, political inertia to decentralise, no coherent planning and policy framweorks.(there a hundred pieces of legislation and policy framwework withing the local and central goverment establishments stipulationg similar functions for vbarious actors. most importantly the infighting between various ministry as to who is supposed to perform what what function
cont from #5]
use busy roads frequently. Seeing that this would be a project carried out by govt, Bus operators like FLASH will operate the roads for free provided their motor vehicles meet certain specifications. The reason for this would be to avoid the inflation of bus fares and encourage more people using the bus instead of the car on a busy road.
Now for a motorist, they could apply for either a basic plan, premium plan or business plan. On A basic plan, the motorist will pay a monthly fee of around K20,000 [I will use your figure] and will use the busy road for around 30 times a month. If the person exceeds the limit on the basic plan, they will have to pay an extra K500/use of road.
cont from #8]
On the Premium plan, the motorist will pay a monthly fee of K50,000 and that motorist can use the busy road for a maximum of 100 times. If they exceed, they are subject to the same penalty fee as that of the basic plan.
For a business plan, the motorist will pay a monthly fee of K70,000 and will use the road an unlimited number of times. In the business plan, there are no penalty fees.
The govt is however obliged to keep the roads always intact and they can earn extra revenue from Billboard adverts or allowing advertising companies to have billboards on the busy roads (for a fee of course).
This is what I can think of. Feel free to agree or disagree. [end]
contributes to a lack of priority and presents serious leadership crisis that prevents the institution from working effectively. and of course there is the lack of public confidence in the ability of key public sector to provide services these then tends to be reflected in atitudes issues among the general citizens. i can go on and on. Of course there some minimal progress or signs of change in some sectors but i think these are abysmal in the least . what we need is a total overhaul in the instituinla as well as the political establishment. we need a rethink and revolutionary outlook at the role of public service and social investment.
no.5 Free Market Capitalist: May first commend you for those proposals that may contribute towards inproving the effective functioning of our public transport system. I would agree with you reluctantly that your suggestions would be one way of helping. I say relactuntly coz they is a catch. The assumption in your suggestions is that we also have relative well functioning supporting services in other areas that would go hand in hand with that transport plans you are suggesting. I am talking about the existent of a corrupt free (to the extent possible) management and oversight system to implement it. (e.g peoepl to collect the tolls,(or a computerised payment system, A tracking mechanism to
monitor and keep track of owing motorists, and also there is the whole issue of managing the collected revenue to ensure a good part of it goes back to maintain the very raods. This is a bigger part of the problem. Our tax collection system is highly centralised. Apart from a few local taxes (which are negligable) all taxes collected no matter where go the central treasury where they are administered and allocated within the nationl bugdets. Now we all know that our spending priorty allocation is not the best so again even if billions are collectd there is no garuntee that it will be used on the inteneded purposes. That is not to say your idea cant work, it can on the following conditions:
1. a relative fair decentralised (with full devolution of authority and each responsility, not deconcentration like we have no).
2. A reform and strengthening of the relevant instituions that wil play a role in ur plan ( Traffic dept, council authorities, registration dept) there must be upto date databases of motorists and vehicles, computerised systems linked to each other among the various departments.
3. And i agree with the point made that the fees should not be too much as this will give an incentive for people to defualt.
4. each local authority should be in charhe of a zoned areas for collecting and maintaining roads and should be reporting an representative community based body a
and should also be reporting to a parliament scrutiny for extra oversight. The local authorities should be auduted by the AG as well and incentives should be given to well perfroming authorities in form of extrat supplemantary grants from local authorities.
Tetamashimba wale bwata sana, now you are minister of local government. what are you doing about the poor state of our roads? honestly you can’t even use a grader(sp) to level those craters in some of our streets?
Unlike late president Mwanawasa, it seems Rupiah
Banda cannot make a decision on his own.
It seems his presidency is indebted to those individuals who supported him to become President and not anyone else. Not even the people of Zambia.
RB hahahaha ,, This is very dangerous. No wonder his first act was to please his masters at a time when world leaders are spending sleepless nights trying to find solutions to the global economic rescession.
We must not expect anything good from Rupiah.
Let the situation remain the way it is. Introducing toll gates will just be one way for making the politicians rich or have more sources of where to milk the already over milked tax payers. What have we seen from the tax that Magande kept praising ZRA for whenever they collected surplus money. Let the situation remain the way it is than letting us have our BP raised by congestion and paying to be on poorly maintained and congested roads. I would rather die of congestion induced BP that toll gates fee paying induced BP. More money into govt coffres amounts to more resources abuse and mismangement, so the status quo is much more better in my opinion.
from the look from the pics above,the answer is a 100% no!!!!
These LT pics have just reminded me of home. The road in my street was last worked on maybe in 1960. Now, we only have remnants of tar mixed with the actual brown ground.
Shame on us for not building infrasturcture and also failing to maintain the one which was left to us by the colonial masters a scenario which is synonymous with a situation where a wealthy father with businesses dies and then the children are left to take care of his investments, but weeks later all the companies are mismanaged collapsing to alomst irrecoverable extents in 44 days time.
I hope someone will do his job on reading this.
The story is the same throughout the country.In Chingola for example the Central Street in Kabundi South was “worked” on early this year and undoubtedly billions of kwacha paid to the contractor but the road is already almost becoming impassable.There seems to be utter incompetence or plain corruption in the award and surpervision of road works.At least LPM had spasms of concern.
#21
This ia a good article. But we do not need to end just here by writing in the paper. What I expect people in Zambia is to demand for the service to be provided. We need to hold the Roads Agency accountable for the money they collect. No service provider will give good service if it is not demanded. So can we raise to the challenge because we are the MASTERS. Lets ask them how they are spending our money.
#5 while i totally agree with you i think we still need to hold the gvt accountable about where they take the already existing road levies.Your suggestion as well as that of #21 are both genuine.Lets examine where we are and why we are where we are then decide where we want to be and finaly how we will reach there
Who wrote this article? Well, I’m just thinking aloud, but the topic is good and the contentent is pathetic! I learnt the word pathetic in my second grade (grade 2) and I have not forgetten what it means! The question of “who” wrote this article might soud strange here because it is obviously Wesley Ngwenya but how does he sound like that in his expose as to refer to Lusaka residents as Lusakans and the construction of his English is again appalling. LT, I’m now stuck!
The author is saying “we lusakans are to blame for the negligence that is continuosly exhibited by he autorities since we behave the same”. Why is the blame going to the tax payers(Lusakans) who should actaually demand a service from the local authority???? Somebody help here! And how are “lusakans” behaving the same? Do you expect them to use their “slave wages” to repair roads and pay tax at the same time? What is the duty of the council and where does tax payers and council levies money go? I demand replies!
I do not think we should complain because you have to look at the quality of leader we are electing. Nothing is going to happen. It will be just the same thing over again. Zambians has a short memory when it comes to electing the right leaders. and I’m not saying that M C Sata would do a good job.
good article,the council needs to be innovative.they need to put toll gates on such rds as great east,great north,kafue and mumbwa roads,not on rds within the city.secondly,lsk city council need to look into the staff they have at civic centre with regard to qualifications.lsk requires serious city planners,engineers,accountants and all the technocrats involved besides well exposed politicians in the name of counsellors.some workers @ the city council there are just there to get paid,no qualifications whatsoever.hahahahaha,hmm!corruption yeve ni namba1,God how much of parking levi goes into council accounts,kaya pa lsk!!
I don’t see how Zambia or rather Lusaka should be having traffic congestion problems when there is so much land available. Why can’t the gov’t just construct more roads on the outer parts of Lusaka. Toll gates would also work when all other alternatives have been used up. We need good roads through out the country not just in Lusaka. Good roads will promote trade, lessen car accidents plus will bring many more benefits to the nation of Zambia.
We the people of Zambia are to blame. We have not taken an initiative to hold our leaders accountable for the service they are providing. Our relationship with them is that of ‘PRINICIAL – ACTOR’. Unless we know what relationship exists can we start demanding for better roads. So what shall we do? Continue complaining in the papers like this? Come on guys! Does it mean that our brothers and sisters back home are complaining to the authorities and they not acting? If that is the case then we are still very far from attaining real democracy.
Two things come to mind. Its either our professionals have failed us or there is no political will to improve the situation. If the former is the problem and there is political will, lets outsource professionals that can come up with designs for a national road network. If its lack of political will, tough luck we voted them in but that doesn’t mean we can’t do nothing about it. Vote them them out come 2011. Talema!
whoever wrote this article was dreaming.First of all,the idea of introducing bicycles will kill more people since we do not have bicycle paths in zambia,how do you blame the locals for filling the potholes in front of our yards so late when in the first place they are not suppose to do that if everything is well planned.Zambia lost its direction longtime ago,certain things can never be corrected once they have been implemented.This is what you get for having a rotten system that has held on to incompetent personal.The world has become dynamic,planning for artifacts these days require some complicated softwares,but how can we introduce that in our work places when we have old uniformed peo
uninformed people who have a computational phobia.We are in for it,and changing it will require dismantling the whole system which is quite impossible,certain things will never change,trust me.
‘lsk city council need to look into the staff they have at civic centre with regard to qualifications.lsk requires serious city planners,engineers,accountants and all the technocrats involved besides well exposed politicians in the name of counsellors.some workers @ the city council there are just there to get paid,no qualifications whatsoever’ by #26, yezyaniso—china, is a classic.
Let us check the educational qualification of all workers in these councils. Also, let NCC put up a Bachelors Degree as a minimun requirement for one to stand as counsellor in a Constituency in the soon coming Zambian Republican Constitution. I think, EDUCATION QUALIFICATIONS are critical in politicians too.
#32 continued.
All Undereducates can be encouraged to go to school and reach Grade 12 since I am meant to believe that the MMD GRZ offers free education for all Zambians regardless of age and level of current position in social status.
No. 15 Pa Bwato, You say “Tetamashimba wale bwata sana, now you are minister of local government. what are you doing about the poor state of our roads? honestly you can’t even use a grader(sp) to level those craters in some of our streets?”
Did you mean to say, “PF wale bwata sana, now you are controlling Lusaka City Council. what are you doing about the poor state of our roads? honestly you can’t even use a grader(sp) to level those craters in some of our streets?” After all each Council has been given graders by Govt.
The burden of taxation on the Zambians is just too much, suggestion for further taxation is not welcome.Zambians are highly taxed to finance the executive.Money finishes before it touches the target.
Pa Zed? awe sure ine nalisula. Not during my life time.
Let’s all buy off-road 4X4s.
Paying more money is not the solution. The problem lies with too much centralisation. As someone already alluded to, the road fuel levy goes straight to the treasury instead of, say, a special account for roads repair. I think the whole fuel levy thing was just a money making gimmick by the govt.. After all they are well known for such money making ventures like new white books (blue books), new ‘computerised’ passport, new this & that. The govt. is also several years behind schedule in planning. Unplanned settlements (mostly shanties) are mushrooming at a faster rate than officially designated settlements that come ‘incomplete’ with no roads and no water or sewer systems. [contd.]
[contd.] I truly believe that regionalisation might be one of the solutions to the problems facing the country. People at the regional level know more of the developmental requirements than a bureaucrat in Lusaka. Also ‘pride’ can play a part in people improving their places of origin whether natives or naturalised. We see it working in the US, Australia, Germany and many other federated countries.
#33…Free education is a myth my friend. A few years ago the president decreed that all government schools [primary & basic] should not charge fees and they will be funded to a tune of ZMK3,000,000 per annum. Compare this amount to the cost of a basic food basket per month [the one by the Catholics] and you will realise that it’s a non-starter. All this talk of free health, free education or free this & that is nonsense and should not be entertained. People should pay for services provided[can be subsidised]. That is the only way the quality can be improved. There is talk of ‘poor’ people with eight children not affording. Why have eight children in the first instance?
It’s world aids day, stop sleeping around!
PF is running all the urban councils
This question. Surely, the roads are there for all to see. Even a blind person can describe the state of our roads by just making them walk there. Local government is doing nothing except putting more money in their pockets. Especially now with Masebo gone…Kaya.
…and by the way these major councils are in the hands of PF. If they cant run a council, how did they hope to run government. Sata is on record as having said Lusaka will change. Yes it has changed…For the worst.
“Dream, plan, and achieve” is the motto that Zambia does not use. # 32, just for your own information, Lusaka City Council and other Infrastructure related wings of government such as Buildings Department (MoWS) have very qualified Planners, Architects, Engineers, Surveyors, to name bus a few. If these guys were to be listened to, funded, and allowed the freedom to express their training, Zambia would have had better infrastructure as we speak. There is no political will to build things, so keep dreaming.
#16, I know that Zambians have a phobia about criticizing people who have died. It is a cultural thing.
But with due respect, did the potholes shown develop over the last 1 month of Rupia being in Plot 1. They have been there during the whole period of LPM’s rule. Lease criticize LPM and give Rupia chance to make his own impact or mistakes. You also have the option of criticizing the whole of MMD.
RB was in charge of floods mitigation under his office when he was VP
and the best he did was to leave trenches which are very dangerous especially in this rain season as you cant tell between the trench and the road, aroad in case is the staff college road in kamwala.it is a true reflection of rupiah s capability.i wonder what is in store for Zambia with this man at the helm
Imwee not even going far ku ma roads, have u checked out our so called international airport!!!!!!!!! Aweee nichama nsoni saaaaaaaana, kwati nipa workshop, and yet we pay departure fees, iwee Banda you mean the whole lot of the Govt cant afford to buy paint???? U ‘ve seen wat ur friends like in are doing, AWEEEEEEEEEEE MAN!!!! salapuka, uti nfesa nsoni!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Given a chance to look after money and all the other resources of the country you will do the same as RB.The issue at hand is poverty levels.All the monies from the mentioned taxes gets milked as it changes hands in the beaurocratic govt system.Decentralisation is the key as it will eliminate all this nonsense and also the people on the ground will priotise what to do