Government has neglected my area - Mwape

COMMENT - What is needed is a redistribution of national resources to the ward or local council level. That is decentralisation.

Government has neglected my area - Mwape
By Christopher Miti in Nyimba
Sun 19 June 2011, 04:00 CAT

THE government has completely neglected the people of Mwape, complains chieftainess Mwape of the Nsenga people in Nyimba.

Speaking when People's Pact Forum acting national chairperson Colonel Panji Kaunda paid a courtesy call on her on Thursday, chieftainess Mwape said there was no hope that the current government could bring development in the area.

“I am not a politician but it pains me to see the way the government has neglected this area. Even in marriage when every time you are being pushed against the wall, can that be a good marriage?

We are human beings, that's what they should know and this time I think we have seen enough and enough is enough. We should just look at other things that can help us especially those that can assist my people.

It's difficult to keep people but our colleagues at the top don't see the problems that we are going through,” chieftainess Mwape said.

The chieftainess said she had presented numerous problems that her people were facing but there was no intervention from government.

Chieftainess Mwape said the roads have never been repaired since 2003 despite being funded many times.

“We just hear reports that the funds for Nyimba/Mwape road have been released but can't be traced. At one point I think it should be last year or 2009 the monies were released and they were deposited in one of the filling station’s accounts in Petauke.

They started repairing the Nyimba/Mwape road up to the stream which is near Nyimba Hospital and the next thing that I got was 'your monies have gone towards the rehabilitation of roads in Mkaika.

Now you can imagine, I don't belong to Katete district but Nyimba. How can money be transferred from one district to another district? From one chiefdom to the other. So that's how the whole story ended,” she said.

Chieftainess Mwape said it was bad that government was neglecting roads which were a lifeblood of any development.

“We have nowhere to complain to, if I remember very well we had a chiefs' meeting in Nyimba the four of us, Nyalugwe, Ndake, Luembe and I. It was a consultative meeting for the heads of departments to see what they have done in chiefdoms.

From the reports they were giving, starting from education, health and other sectors, there was nothing good for my chiefdom. I was not happy and I even asked the DC himself as to why I was being sidelined.

I asked him whether I was being sidelined because I am a female. I even asked the DC to ask the departmental heads as to why I was being sidelined,” she said.
Chieftainess Mwape said her area only benefited from the Constituency Development Fund in 2006.

She said without investors, Kalongo Mwape Basic School which was within the vicinity of the palace would have been in a bad state.

She said the government was everyday singing about the importance of clean drinking water but that they do not sink boreholes in Mwape.

“The government has really done nothing for the people of Mwape. It pains me to see how my people are suffering.

There is no reliable transport because of bad roads, people walk 80 kilometres from here to Petauke or Nyimba but we have fierce wild animals. Farming has become difficult because of wild animals, so hunger is the order of the day,” chieftainess Mwape said.

She said Nyimba district commissioner Colonel Jeremiah Mbawe went to her area with tourism minister Catherine Namugala when she was away sometime last year and misled her people.

“These people came here without paying a courtesy call, without even making an appointment; these are the two people who disturbed my people in Mafoleka area where you passed through.

I thought being a minister of tourism she was going to be happy to say animal population has increased in Mwape. But they were there misleading the people telling them that 'your chief likes wild animals not you people, how can you be suffering', so they told the people to relocate so that's how they relocated,” chieftainess Mwape said.

And Col Panji explained the purpose of his trip and the meaning of the People’s Pact Forum that he was heading.

He encouraged chieftainess Mwape to speak for her people because if she did not, no one would do so.