Govt buys 100 hearses

Govt buys 100 hearses
Written by Mwala Kalaluka in Chirundu
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 5:31:37 PM

THE government has procured 100 hearses from China's Beijing Auto Works (BAW), operating as Top Motors Limited in Zambia, at a cost of over US$29,000 each. And some Chirundu residents last Saturday curiously mistook the hearses bought by the Ministry of Local Government and Housing for mobile hospitals when the trucks carrying them arrived in the border town.

Meanwhile, local government minister Benny Tetamashimba said the hearses were meant to help poor people in the country's rural districts who are always exploited when burying their dead.

A check by The Post established that the black vehicles were hearses and that of the 100, 68 were already in the country.

Well-placed sources in government said each of the hearses was sold to the government at a duty free cost of about US$29,400 and that they could carry a maximum of three caskets at once.

Sources said the hearses were arriving in Lusaka from the Port of Durban via Chirundu border in batches and were being off-loaded at a farm in Chamba Valley.

The sources said 12 vehicles had been off-loaded on Sunday while another 18 had been off-loaded as of yesterday.

And one of the drivers who delivered the hearses from South Africa confirmed that they were 100 in total.

And one of the residents, who preferred to remain anonymous, said most residents of Chirundu became suspicious when the trucks carrying the hearses arrived in the border town on Saturday afternoon.

The residents thought that the vehicles were mobile hospitals that the government intends to procure from China at a cost of US$53 million under intense opposition from some sectors.

“The vehicles look like Hummers and they also look like ambulances and we were asking why the Ministry of Local Government and Housing should buy Hummer-like ambulances,” the source said.

But Tetamashimba said although he was not aware of the procurement, the budget to buy the hearses was prepared before he became local government minister.

Tetamashimba said his director of local government informed him yesterday that the government had paid about K14 billion for the hearses last year and that it was true they were arriving in the country.

“For example, in the rural districts there has been a problem of burial where the poor are being exploited by people when they are burying their dead,” said Tetamashimba. “So we are going to give the vehicles to the councils.”