This is among the initiatives for the upgrade of slams into proper settlements as directed by His Excellency President Edgar Chagwa Lungu.
“We want to be able to upgrade these slams into proper settlements. The only challenge normally is how we mobilise resources. We have come up with a solution as ministry of local government to be able to allow our local authorities to issue municipal bonds so that they can invest low cost housing,” said Mr. Mwale.
He added that the law provides for such resource mobilisation by local authorities and that the idea is in an effort to reduce the burden from Central Government.
“The new constitution does allow local authorities to borrow and to raise money through the stock market and be able to invest in infrastructure. This is happening all over the world and in South Africa the councils don’t depend on central government.”
He explained that people that are at the tail end of the spectrum, the low income earners that don’t really have good jobs will be able to find the housing units affordable.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Local government is in the process of fast tracking the policy formulation that speaks to the idea and it has so far received financial support from UN Habitat as well as the Ministry of Finance inorder to expedite the process.
“Once we have a policy in place, that will deal with urbanization, and how to upgrade slams, and also going forward how we are going to you know introduce new settlements areas we think that we will be able to deal with this matter.” He said.
Mr. Mwale said this at a Joint Press Briefing by Minister of Health Hon. Dr. Chitalu Chilufya, Minister of Local Government Hon. Vincent Mwale, Water and Sanitation PS, Mr Chomba which was held at Ndeke House earlier today where the minister of Health Hon Dr Chitalu Chilufya announced the invocation of the Public Health Act as a Measure to arrest the prevailing Cholera Situation.
This shows president Lungu is the right person to lead the country forward in 2021 plus
Thanks
BB2014,2016
Ba Minishta, great idea. Just one question, as the GRZ has exhausted theirs lenders, have you identified lunatics which are going to buy your bonds?
Where do you suppose entities that buy bonds from the Central Bank (Bank of Zambia) come from? THINK: ‘low risk’ investment and you will realise how easy it will be to find investors.
There is nothing novel about Municipal Bonds and the matter is not that simple. Is there a Bond Market in Zambia? Are there liquid Pension Funds who can buy these bonds? At what Interest rate and over what period are these Bonds? Can the broke Municipalities service and repay the bonds on maturity? If Mwale can’t answer these questions then he doesn’t know what he is talking about. The Debt Stock issues affecting the National Treasury will affect Municipalities. Municipalities do not collect enough Revenue to pay recurrent expenditures,service and repay the Bonds. Minister Mwale is daydreaming.
He is just bwetu bwetu bwetu ….. So assuming their are some Looney investors and bonds are issued and shantys are upgraded what happens to the current residents what is the potential cost of resettlement ?? What markets will issue these bonds since I am 200% sure none of the council’s have independently audited books for the last 5 years to qualify to be listed. Vincent just like u defended the usd 1 mn wheelbarrow you are not convincing
You must be joking. Who will invest in bonds issued by broke councils. Stop your thieving first ba Koswe !!
Trouble is when someone thinks they ve a PhD in sociology then it means that can interpret any subject including economics.
GoVT currently is overboorrowing locally in terms of t-bills and the like. Internationally it stands to fail to service the many eurobonds outstanding. And you know China wants to indebt you so they can control you. Municipal bonds are issued by municipalities the public, locally or internationally and if you see the performance of these municipalities, one just wonders how a serious investor would take all that risk. Operational risk is huge.., default risk is the order of the day and the list goes on. So when a person is so desperate, they will end up miss applying the same revenues these municipalities would pool up like it happens with govt run institutions.