Maravi

Chikwelete asks home affairs ministry to account for K2bn

Chikwelete asks home affairs ministry to account for K2bn
By Henry Sinyanwe
Thu 07 Jan. 2010, 04:01 CAT

LUSAKA Mayor Robert Chikwelete has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to account for the K2 billion that was spent on police officers deployed to remove street vendors.

Chikwelete said the bigger task of removing vendors from the streets was only done in three days while the rest of the days, officers were just spending time in the streets doing nothing.

“The actual removal of vendors was only done in less than three days and the rest of the days officers were found lazing around. We have not received any details on how the K 2 billion was spent by home affairs,” said Chikwelete.

And Lusaka City Council public relations manager Chanda Makanta has expressed disappointment at the lack of cooperation by the Ministry of Home Affairs saying that each time they needed their help, they had to spend large sums of money for their service.

“We all belong to Zambia and when it calls for duty, we should help each other and not only when there is money,” she said.

Asked on what the local authority was doing about the vendors that were back on the streets, Makanta said they have deployed council police and they also asked for help from the police but were only given 18 police officers who were placed at strategic positions.

She said council police, who are not armed when on duty, are usually harassed by the vendors hence the need for help from the Zambia Police.

“Inasmuch as these people need to feed their families from the street business, as a local authority we also have the duty to keep the city clean but we cannot do this alone. We need help from the police,” said Makanta.

However, when contacted for a comment, home affairs minister Lameck Mangani said the issues raised by the local authority were administrative.
Mangani said he had not been informed about any problems that the local authority was facing with his ministry.

Labels: MAYOR, MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS, ROBERT CHIKWELETE

posted by MrK @ 4:11 AM