Maravi

LETTERS - Local Government,

Zambia's local govt
By Concerned citizen,Mongu
Friday May 09, 2008 [04:00]

I wish to analyse the current state of our local authorities in Zambia in line with the 2030 vision – an aspiration of Zambia as a prosperous middle income country. In order to achieve our vision, we are to grow our economy at rates consistently higher than 6 per cent now onwards. However, a cursory look at the state of affairs in councils indicates a poor mapping on 2030 on the local government system.

The system is in great shambles – and no one really cares. The Zambian general public as well as donors need to re-examine the state of our councils. Suppose we have 50 councils countrywide, each employing an average of 50 employees, that means over 2,500 employees.

If it is true that each worker feeds an average of 15 extended family members, we are talking of a whooping over 30,000 Zambians starving as a result of poor local government policy. That qualifies to me as a national disaster.

A normal council will not be able to pay salaries every month – at least they will lag behind for up to 12 months. The people of Zambia have let this situation to prevail in a country desiring to reach middle income status soon.

No one is bothered that so many families can be subjected to hunger by virtue of poor government policies. No one is ready to challenge the system to yield results for the people and indeed the communities. A town clerk can be in a council for decades even beyond the tenure of any president in power except perhaps Mr Mugabe.

I wish to draw the attention of the public and donors to what is happening in our Councils today. I am a chief officer in a council in this country where I have been employed for some time now and I really cannot sit and watch a national disaster happen in our country.

Why have we as Zambians allowed this to go on forever? The government needs to take some immediate measures if families are to survive hunger, thirst and corruption and prevent further plunder of national resources:
I propose as follows:-

The minister must be given powers to fire erring principal officers. Most town clerks know that the minister is handicapped and can only dissolve a council and leave the same old inefficient so-called technocrats still mismanaging.

The minister must be given powers to direct that all senior management positions in the councils countrywide immediately be re-advertised from a national centre point, and those in current management be offered an option to retire or to re-apply and risk losing their benefits should they not succeed.

Exclude councillors from participating in any of the recruitment processes as they are ill-qualified.

Use an independent body, such as NWASCO to re-cruit qualified senior management staff, and principal officers. The problem cannot be overcome by merely re-instituting the Local Government Service Commission as has been planned.

Place all newly-recruited chief officers and their deputies, and principal officers on three-year performance based contracts immediately. How can we perpetuate inefficiency?
Involve a regulator to immediately inspect all councils and provide an inspection report of each council as quickly as possible examining seven key specific benchmarks.

Disallow any council from effecting a Valuation Roll which has not met conditionality on selected minimum service standards and efficiency parameters i.e. revenue collection efficiency parameters, salary arrears etc and other basket of parameters such as response to audits, preparation of work plans etc,.i.e. apply efficiency conditionality.

Amend the local government Act to provide for an independent board of directors to manage the councils, and remove that role from councillors and MPs entirely. These can be addressed by district commissioners in DDCCs.

Leave councillors and MPs at stakeholder level just as in a district there are many stakeholders working in collaboration with the district commissioners only to specific duties of plans, developments, in their wards i.e. (DDCC) programmes - based participatory participation and not management based board representation.

Allow the council management to have a disciplinary committee, which would be able to handle all disciplinary matters of the council without recourse to any other committee.

With the recruitment of new principal officers, and management – no council would be allowed to operate without paying monthly salaries. Such a principal officer would be fired if he cannot assure to pay salaries every month. Part of his contract should indicate that he has accepted the responsibility to be a principal officer and to pay salaries each month. (Why? How can we as a Christian nation perpetuate poverty and corruption?

How do you expect a staff who has not been paid for 12 or six months or whatever to perform? What about their families? Would we expect a Chinese firm to employ people on these conditions? But are we not doing it as a government? What is happening is that those who have been in the system have means and ways and do not use the council for salaries. They use the council simply to drain resources.

Sign a minimum service level agreement with each council to provide a minimum service level in its area and communicate that service to the communities.

Abolish the role of Provincial Local Government Office. What is their output if the whole sector is literally dead?

I am inviting all those who care about Zambia to submit their comments on my views, and also donors too I am quite happy to assist this country to work out a drastic policy change on councils as a citizen who has seen a continuous deterioration . There are many other measures which I would be glad to share with others and can be contacted on my email address below.

In its current state our council is an oxymoron. I believe Dr Kenneth Kaunda afforded us free education so that we could be future leaders in our country and turnaround each sector of the economy - and the future is now. I wonder how this sector of local government can achieve the growth rates of 6 per cent and above consistently without the above being urgently addressed. I remain yours in government service truly patriotic Zambian and invite any reasonable Zambian to challenge my views over the sad affairs in our councils and to implement a better system.


http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=41367

Luapula bridge
By Concerned Citizen,Kitwe
Friday May 09, 2008 [04:00]

Allow me to comment on Mansa town clerk Bwanga Kapumpa’s comments on the naming of the bridge in Chembe as reported in The Post of 6 May, 2008.

It would appear that Kapumpa is determined to gain favour from Levy Mwanawasa by insisting that the naming of the new bridge over Luapula River is irreversible. Kapumpa’s personal opinion cannot represent the true feelings of the people of Luapula.

It is common knowledge that because of the high levels of ignorance and poverty among our people in rural areas, town clerks have a great say in the decisions that are passed in their council chambers. Kapumpa should not deceive himself that the name is irreversible. Has he forgotten how the famous Kaunda Square in Kitwe was renamed City Square immediately after Dr Kaunda lost the elections.

I am confident that once Mwanawasa leaves State House, the name will be changed to reflect the true wishes of the people of Luapula. People like Kapumpa who thrive on short-term appeasement usually find their names relegated to the archives together with their ideas.

Labels: COUNCILS, INFRASTRUCTURE, LOCAL GOVERNMENT

posted by MrK @ 4:08 AM