Caritas Zambia has supported the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB) in their call for withdrawal of the controversial Constitution Amendment Bill number 10 of 2019 which seeks to amend Zambia’s 2016 Constitution.

This is according to a statement signed by Caritas Zambia Executive Director Eugene Kabilika.

He made the remarks on behalf of all Caritas Zambia Diocesan Directors.

Key principles of Catholic Social Teaching

“We agree with the Bishops on the need for inclusive consultations on matters concerning the amendment of Zambia’s 2016 Constitution. When Bishops analyse political events, they do so in the light of the Word of God and the Social Teaching of the Church. Bill No. 10 falls short of promoting some of the key principles of the Social Teaching of the Church,” said Kabilika.

He added, “While the constitution-making process is a common good for Zambians, the government refused to amend the National Dialogue Forum Bill (NDF), which would have set the tone for national unity and healing.”

The Bill has lapsed and should not be insisted upon

Caritas Zambia Directors from the Dioceses say that, in any case, according to Parliamentary Standing Orders, Bill No. 10 lapsed on 4 June 2020 and it was wrong to insist on it.
Caritas Zambia has since repeated the call made by the Zambian Bishops on 9 June 2020 that Bill 10, should be withdrawn.

“We call upon the government to listen to the voice of reason. Amendments to the Constitution of Zambia should be based on the widest consultation and consensus-building,” Kabilika said..

Bill No.10 has polarised the nation

Recently, President of the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop George Cosmas Lungu said Constitution Amendment Bill No. 10 was polarising Zambians and should be withdrawn from parliament.

Explaining the Bishops’ objections, Secretary-General of the Bishops’ Conference, Fr. Cleophas Lungu, said the amendments were too radical.

He said the ruling party had hijacked the process for its own political ends.

“To begin with, in terms of the main objectives: When we were embarking on this journey, it was our understanding that the aim was to address the lacunas (gaps) in the amended Constitution of 2016. It was our view that the law needed some refinement. Alas, we see now that the Patriotic Front Government has gone beyond the original objective. Some wholesale changes are being proposed that will radically change the nature of the Constitution and even the nature of our young but maturing democracy,” said Fr. Cleophas Lungu.

By Chaka Zulu

The growing traffic problems in our city calls for urgent and effective remedies. Yet old-school ‘solutions’ such as flyovers, wider roads, and elevated expressways actually make matters worse. Flyovers represent a twentieth century delusion of free-flowing traffic, built at extraordinary costs for a very small percentage of road users.

Over decades, planning and development authorities around the world have fetishized the flyover as putative symbols of ‘modernity’ or ‘technological advancement’. Their actions to fuel the velocity and demand of private vehicles have shaped the urban space discourse. Flyovers continue to hack through the urbanscapes, displacing homes and economies.

In reality, while such infrastructure may provide a short-term illusion of relief from traffic flow, but by making it easier for people to use their own vehicles, new roads attract even more traffic and repeat the vicious cycle of congestion all over again.

Around the world, cities from Seoul to San Francisco are tearing down flyovers and/or rejuvenating dead spaces under the flyover with human scaled spaces that promote green modes of transport. In doing so, these cities have been able to reduce pollution, improve safety, and ensure that high quality public transport offers a meaningful alternative to sitting in traffic.

Cities in India have started to recognise that the key to urban mobility is moving people, not vehicles. In 2016, Ranchi (capital city of Jharkhand), a city for which ITDP India Programme has provided technical support since 2013, took bold steps and stalled the construction of two flyovers on Main Road.

The Urban Development and Housing Department, Government of Jharkhand, cancelled the flyover project that was proposed to decongest the city area, and instead focused on designing the street to prioritise the cleanest, most efficient modes: walking, cycling, and public transport.

Over a third of the population in India cities rely on walking, cycling, and other forms of human-powered transport to commute to work and get around cities every day. Increasing the use of cycles and the ease of walking is one of the most affordable and practical ways to reduce CO2 emissions, while boosting health and access to economic opportunity.

Lusaka should also focus on public transport driven mobility. By international standards, our cities need 20-30 km of mass rapid transit for every one million residents. This means that the greater city like Lusaka require over 200 km of rapid transit. Currently, NO suburban rail and metro combined, it would take three generations to build enough rapid transit in the city!

One of the most effective option to scale up the nation’s ability to provide high capacity public transport corridors is the Bus Rapid Transit, also known as the BRT. The system features dedicated median lanes for buses, allowing commuters to bypass the congestion in mixed traffic lanes.

A Bus Rapid Transit can carry anywhere between 10,000-30,000 people per hour per direction, which is approximately seven to eight times more than the capacity of a 2-lane flyover. The system can also be deployed quickly at a fraction of the cost of a flyover. A flyover costs approximately US$1M per km, whereas, a Bus Rapid Transit costs much less per km.

Cities like Seoul, San Francisco, Toronto, built flyovers between the 1950s and 1980s, only to pull them down later to make space for its people. To be ‘smart’, African cities must learn from these examples and best practises. Our cities should realise that such infrastructure only begets more traffic and pollution, and shift focus to prioritising walking, cycling, as a realistic solution for heathy benefits and the use of public transport for business opportunities for driver and conductors .

Imagine how healthy, cheaper and faster public transport would become and the job opportunities that will come with these innovative solution for the buses and taxis business.

Next we will look at how we are trying to decongest the city of Lusaka while recongesting it by building a 25,000 conference centre right in it.

The New Hope MMD in government will seek to provide enhanced mobility solutions for the public such as Metro and other efficient, cheaper modern transport solutions.

The author is the Chairperson of Transport and Communication in the New Hope MMD and also a Parliamentary candidate for Chadiza Constituency