By Chaka Zulu
It is so disheartening and sad to read about Cabinet Ministers and the incumbent Chadiza Member of Parliament make pronouncements about downgrading a road that feeds the nation. How can one advocate that The Chipata – Chadiza and Vubwi roads should remain as gravel roads? Honestly?
Does it really make sense for these roads to only be graded with the foresight that the rainy season will be upon us? November is not too far away. The onset of the rains will wash these temporary stop-gap measures away.
My research on the importance of such feeder roads has shown that Government program and policy framework and the subsequent methods employed to invest in strategic community development actions do provide an enabling avenue for agricultural sector advancement and Investment in agricultural technology.
This has been observed over time and is certainly a major factor in historically proven examples of agricultural efficiency that ensure we as a nation have sufficient food reserves. This resonates with the presumption that activites are vibrant and geared towards the realization of oir National food Security agenda; especially the Goals of the 7th National Development Plan to eliminate the number of people living in hunger and poverty at all levels by the year 2030.
The challenge in agricultural research and development is by keeping previous output accomplishments. By enhancing agricultural invention and innovation which can distinguish outputs by value addition by making rural farmers have a meaningful proportion of output gains.
Food security can be said to exist when people, especially the low-income group, at all times, have access to adequate food supply for sustenance meeting every household dietary requirements for healthy living.
This is given the recent empirical observations that most activities by economic agents can be predicated upon the nature of institutional framework that is made even more viable and operational by a good feeder road system.
The Inadequacy of infrastructure facilities such as rural feeder roads among others further exacerbates poverty in rural areas by isolating rural farmers from needed inputs and access to sustainable and profitable markets.
On the other hand, the availability of basic amenities especially feeder roads can increase the returns for farmers in rural communities can realise from their farming endeavours. For instance, it has been noted that in rural Zambia, the provision of rural feeder roads has the potential of increasing internal rate of returns by 12 to 15 %. Pressure from rising populations is also affecting already declined resources, further threatening food production.
Over-farmed land, deforestation, and overgrazing are severe in many parts of the country for citizens want to settle were there is easy access to roads.
As much as we appreciate the efforts by the Government under the Link Zambia initiative, we from the Eastern province and Chadiza district in particular are appealing to Government to reconsider their decision to downgrade the roads in Eastern province and rather upgrade them to bituminous standards.
We want to reinforce the sentiments by the Paramount Chief of the Ngoni, Mpezeni that; “its unfortunate that the Government has decided to downgrade the roads in Eastern province”
The Author is the 2021 MMD Chadiza Parliamentary Aspirant
We are always told during campaigns that voting for a ruling party MP is a recipe for you to see development, why have the downgraded the road is it under the opposition?
Is building a road the end of the development process? A brand new hospital and school hv been done in that place. It’s not absolutely true that nothing has been done by government. Wht about Shibuyunji where Zambia has been mining at Nampundwe since 1967 and there’s also Blue Lagoon national park nearby, the closest natural habitat of wild game to Lusaka? The road hasn’t been seen as a priority for developing weekend tourism and yet they never stop prattling on about how it is a priority sector.
Unfortunately it seems Zambia is only Lusaka,the rest does not matter.Nothing new it was always like that.Shame.
Please do not fall for fake news propagated by those with ulterior motives. Get the official information and reasoning behind why decisions are made from the official sources. Not these online cadres
Write simply and avoid too much verbiage. Do not just string words together simply because they sound nice. They must make sense and either excite or encourage the reader to read on but not to get bored and give up.
The only roads being graded are the ones that lead to minister houses and their villages.
What official sources which are always lies and deceit to poor people. I have driven in that road my vehicle went for service immediately – Pathetic fools
It’s really another false start in Zambia. There’s too little local taxation in Zambia to fund purely local public goods. All the money to fund development projects has to come from Lusaka. It cannot possibly work. We need to ask ourselves wht taxes can be imposed in Lundazi, Chadiza etc to pay for local public goods. If u check the small shops on Lusaka-Kabwe road, they’re all licenced by Chibombo Council but in turn the council provides nothing in terms of services. Traders pay the licence fee just to be able to buy goods from wholesale shops.
I read only first sentences and the last part that is MMD member who wants to stand. My questions are
1. When did chadza become food basket that even MMD did not realize that? 2. It took 20 years of MMD rule, you expect PF
to do everything in 8 years of which these guy have done wonder never before? Don’t be insolent.
The author of this is an aspirant with wrong vision altogether. He thinks attacking others is development itself. These are chaps once elected, he will runaway or just be womanizing at parliament motel. Bwana aspirant get your facts together and strategise that rubbish you are publicizing will not take you anywhere. For example, people in vubwi may vote for without you calling names. But the standard stupidity in Zambia is that calling names, posting tuma pictures and many useless actions are taking centre stage. What are you going to to if we do not adopt you? What are you going to say if pf start working on the same road? You say it is campaign and so forth. And when it is done, you will say that it corruption. Ba mwisho shibukeni, mwapwala
Kaiser says criticise with reason behind a given decision! I totally agree with him!!!