Chipata ready to attain city status - Town clerk
Chipata ready to attain city status - Town clerkWritten by Christopher Miti in Chipata
Saturday, September 19, 2009 5:07:36 PM
CHIPATA municipal council town clerk Golden Banda has said Chipata is ready to attain a city status. In an interview, Banda said the council had done all the necessary work that could enable the council to attain a city status.
“Some of the things that we have done, we have been able to convince our traditional leaders through Paramount Chief Mpezeni who has authorised and granted us land all round the current boundary jurisdiction 10 kilometres away. This means that we are supposed now to start planning for our town to make it bigger and we have also been able to ably convince our local church the Reformed Church in Zambia through its Synod and we agreed that the issue of the cathedral which has been a thorny issue will now be a thing of the past because the construction of the cathedral will be done at the hill (RCZ premises) while the council has pledged to be able to assist in terms of landscaping. We intend to use the Constituency Development Funds for Chipata central so that we can do surveying and placing of beacons as well as clearing that land so that it becomes easier for the church to put up a modern cathedral,” Banda said.
He said the late local government minister Benny Tetamashimba had promised that the dream of making Chipata a city would be attained soon.
“Our thinking is that this whole issue of the city of Chipata should be before December hopefully, we again with the infrastructural development that has taken place and still taking place in Chipata we feel we are adequately qualified,” Banda said. “We should be having a hotel very soon, whilst in Lusaka I had an opportunity to meet Mr Mark O’Donnell, the Protea Hotel proprietor and Spar Group of companies, we had fruitful discussions. The drawings for their Hotel has already been approved; then minister local government and housing did approve the change of use so we are very set that with a good hotel in mind ...those of you who have been to Lusaka you have seen Protea Hotel, there that is the kind of hotel that is coming to Chipata.”
Banda said with great effort, the council was receiving K200 million from the Ministry of Local Government and Housing for street and traffic lights.
The Chipata council applied to be conferred with a city status in July this year.
The idea to turn Chipata into a city was conceived by former town clerk Bernard Siwakwi over six years ago.
Labels: CHIPATA
posted by MrK @ 4:07 PM
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