THE Lusaka City Council will lose more than K1.2 million monthly in uncollected levies if the gutted Lusaka City Market remains closed.
Lusaka City Market acting manager Andrew Banda, in an interview yesterday, said the local authority collects about K40,000 per day in levies from shops, stalls, car parks and ablutions.
“The longer this market remains closed, the more money the council will lose in uncollected levies. Even other services which are directly linked to the money collected from the market will also suffer,” he said.
Mr Banda also said the market has not been insured since 2012 but that the council had been in the process of doing so.
And Government has started the process of helping affected traders with the Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit (DMMU) taking stock of the number of the victims so that it can determine how they can be helped.
DMMU national co-ordinator Patrick Kangwa has assured the affected traders that Government is doing everything possible to ensure they resume their businesses.
Mr Kangwa said a team of officers from DMMU has been dispatched to the market to assess and determine the extent of damage.
He said DMMU will wait for Government to give a green light on when the market will be opened.
This will be determined by work being done by police forensic experts at the scene.
The affected traders were yesterday asked to go to the civic centre to submit their particulars and details of property they have lost in the fire.
And police are quantifying the total value of property damaged in the fire through a team of forensic investigators.
Police spokesperson Esther Katongo said in a statement yesterday that 1,901 stalls which got burnt were on the southern part of the market.
Ms Katongo said traders are not being allowed to enter the gutted market to pave way for investigations.
“Some stalls were subdivided by the owners, meaning that there are more people affected than the number of stalls,” she said.
Meanwhile, THE Association of Vendors and Marketeers (AVMA) says no amount of intimidation or acts of sabotage on market infrastructure will deter it from supporting the government of the day.
And the National Marketeers Association of Zambia (NATMAZ) has condemned the burning of Lusaka City Market.
AVMA president Able Chikwa said in an interview yesterday that those who are burning markets are targeting traders because they work with the government of the day.
Mr Chikwa said marketeers will not rise against government because of acts of sabotage on markets but will continue to support it because of its pro-poor policies.
“The people who are burning these markets want us to rise against the government, but we are not going to do so,” he said.
In a disaster all this guy is worried about is money LCC will loose. He is inhuman. He can’t even be sensitive enough to send a sympathetic message to the marketeers who have lost their good and almost their livelihoods. He is a simple case of a person who mourns for the car instead of the his child/wife who has died in its accident
DUNUNA REVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If HH is not released from prison by the end of TODAY then there’s no God!
The market was not insured and they were in the process of doing so since 2012? You collect 1.2m zmw every month and you fail to insure your source of income? This lackadaisical approach to managing public institution is appalling and those given the mandate to do so must be fired forthwith. This is gross incompetence of epic proportions, sad.
And you didn’t disclose this vital information when the cash cow was alive!
No that you’ve started it, go ahead and tell us how much you collect at other public places.
Having lost an important source of your revenue, don’t you think you were dumb not to have invested as much to prevent the catastrophe? This culture of milking cows without feeding them inevitably end in tears.
You mean pf are losing 1.2 million. Next time we hope state house burns
This NEZ must found and questioned. He some to know something. Anyone with information about him, there is a reward at the police HQ
@NEZ, tether your tongue. These aren’t times for sick jokes.
There aren’t any stones big enough to hide under. Trust me.
Brotherly advise from way back: A silent tongue does not betray its owner
City Market was a PF market. You chased all traders with certain surnames because of your greed. We are told also that store spaces were subdivided and subleted. That means there must have been illegal electrical connections the building was not meant to cater for. Naturally, this was a disaster waiting to happen. The sad thing is for someone to take advantage of a situation to declare a state of emergency without evidence of security breach and without caring about the devastating effect this will have on an already fragile economy and worse, denting the image of the nation is callous to say the least. Let’s see how the entire drama unfolds. Cursed be the day PF was formed! You have destroyed Zambia!
This is very retrogressive. But surely the fire must have started from one spot and at least one person should have spotted the exact area where the fire started from. The police who opened the market that day and the cleaners must be properly questioned
As things stands right now, THIS IS SQUARELY ON PF! They have been RUNNING THE ENTIRE LCC SINCE 2006, COLLECTING LEVIES ALL OVER and now they telling us they could NOT: INSURE THE BUILDING,PROVIDE FIRE PREVENTION/PROTECTION (Hydrants,roof water sprayers),INSTALL SECURITY EQUIPMENT (Surveillance cameras(CCVTV)). We have NOT EVEN HEARD from those assigned to guard the market for them to EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED and SOME ONE ALREADY STARTED ASKING FOR THE STATE OF EMERGENCY!! It is very very disappointing!! WHERE ARE THE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES AND PEOPLE APPOINTED TO RUN THEM?? WHERE IS THE MAYOR,TOWN CLERK, COUNCILORS,MPs, MINISTERS.. Very very disappointing failures!!