Kasenengwa District Commissioner Sarah Kalaluka has ruled out any compensation to families in Mkowe Ward whose crop fields were destroyed by earth moving equipment during some road works.
Speaking after touring the affected fields today, Ms Kalaluka said government will not compensate the affected people as enough sensitisation was done in the area on the need for people to leave enough space for the road expansion and construction.
The DC mentioned that a stakeholders meeting was held last year in October and all village headmen whose villages are along the road were informed to urge their subjects to leave a minimum space of six metres on both sides of the road when planting the crops so as to avoid being affected once the road works commenced.
She added that most people whose crop fields are along the road left enough space for road works but a few did not comply.
‘’Most people whose fields are along the road left enough space for the road works but only a few ignored the directive and had their crops destroyed,” the DC said.
Ms Kalaluka observed that the Malochi-Mkowe road had not been worked on for a longtime hence government decision to allocate some funds from the Constituency Development fund (CDF) towards the rehabilitation of the road using the Zambia National Service (ZNS).
“After receiving several complaints from the people about the bad state of the road, we decided to engage the ZNS using the CDF so that this road could be rehabilitated and it is sad that some people decided to ignore the directive to leave enough space for road works,’’ she said.
Meanwhile, Mkowe Ward Development Committee (WDC) Chairperson Nelson Mbewe said reports that people were not aware of the road project are not true because all headmen in the area attended the meeting and documentations are there to that effect.
Mr Mbewe charged that the complaints from a few people that their crop fields were destroyed by the ZNS could have been avoided if the affected people had followed the directive of leaving enough space for road works.
He said the local people are the ones to benefit once the road works are completed hence the need for them to always cooperate when given directives.
It’s good that they had conducted sensitisation programs/meetings prior to the works starting
If these sensitisation was done and people were agreed then there’s no need for compensation
The picture has quite a lot to tell.
What a facade!
Fair play. If you have been told before hand who can you blame.
if this was announced prior to the development then that’s fare, ppl should learn to obey the law, We can’t just turn a blind eye in everything that has been told or said. this should apply to every individual in every corner of the country. Also, communication is the key to all this because it just seems that some leaders luck communication skills. if this is implemented among any other leaders none of this would have had happened.
Who is the man in the picture? Pictures are published with a caption. They are not jut thrown at the reader like that
But the picture shown here is so different from the story line …what is Mr Chitotela doing here and whats his connection to the story
Sorry point ward of correction was meant to be fair not fare!!!