Rev Chama challenges Zambians to work hard
Rev Chama challenges Zambians to work hardBy Mutuna Chanda
Wednesday April 23, 2008 [04:00]
NOBODY will improve the lives of Zambians if they do not take it upon themselves, acting Anglican Church Archbishop for Central Africa Reverend Albert Chama has said.
And Caritas Zambia executive director Sam Mulafulafu has said the government must provide an enabling environment for people, especially those in rural areas, to improve themselves.
In an interview on Monday, Rev Chama said time had passed when people expected the government to do everything for them. Rev Chama's comments come in the wake of concerns over development disparities between people in rural and urban areas.
He said much as there were differences in the levels of development between rural and urban areas as well as the urban poor, citizens had the responsibility of working hard and not depend entirely on the government.
"Citizens have to be proactive and stand up and be counted," Rev Chama said. "Of course it is the primary responsibility of the government to provide the basic necessities to its citizens but they also have to take responsibility for improving their lives."
He said the state was already involving citizens in development programmes but that more needed to be done.
"We have the government involving different groups such as the Church, NGOs and other partners in development," Rev Chama said.
He urged the government to be more inclusive in development matters.
"The state has to begin to encourage people to be involved in development programmes like they have done in some of the initiatives where they have involved the church in distributing mosquito nets to communities among other areas," said Rev Chama.
Rev Chama is acting Archbishop Anglican Church for Central Africa overseeing Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Malawi.
And Mulafulafu said it was very difficult for people especially in rural areas to improve their lives in the absence of sufficient infrastructure that would help them develop.
"For people to improve themselves there must be basic infrastructure such as roads and electricity but when you look at the present setup, there is so much concentration of development in urban areas. It's like Zambia is Lusaka and yet that is not the case in rural areas. As a result, we have so many people moving from rural areas into urban areas causing congestion," Mulafulafu observed. "There are many people who want to invest in rural areas but they are discouraged because there is no basic infrastructure. Even those who are there now because of poor roads, they are unable to reach the market for the things that they produce."
He said the government's major preoccupation should be to improve basic infrastructure in rural areas to enable people there take it upon themselves to improve their lives.
"Even in the context of the Citizens Economic Empowerment Fund, we hope that enough will be done to ensure that people from rural areas benefit from it to improve their lives because it has been too much of people in urban areas having all the benefits," said Mulafulafu.
Labels: ALBERT CHAMA, DEVELOPMENT, ROADS, RURAL AREAS, SAM MULAFULAFU, WORK ETHIC
posted by MrK @ 4:07 AM
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