Government accepts proposal for chiefs to get into mining
By David Chongo in Mufumbwe
Tue 03 July 2012, 13:23 CAT
GOVERNMENT has accepted a proposal for chiefs to establish mining investments held in trust for their local communities, says chief Chipepo of the Tonga people of Chirundu.
Chief Chipepo said the government was willing to nurture the initiative by chiefs to form companies limited by guarantees where shares were majority-accrued to traditional leaders and their people.
Speaking as a guest of chief Mukumbi Kizela at the host's Ntongo traditional ceremony of the Kaonde in Mufumbwe on Saturday, chief Chipepo said the firms would be known singularly as 'Chiefdom Foundation Company Ltd'.
He said the government had positively received the initiative through the Ministry of Mines and Minerals Development and had asked chiefs in North Western Province to locate sites they wanted to apply for in their chiefdoms for which they would be given priority in choosing.
Chief Chipepo said former diplomat Mulondwe Muzungu, who is also a director in Mufumbwe-based Euro Africa Kalengwa Mine, would spearhead establishment of the initiative for chief Kizela's people.
He said people in the province were sleeping on wealth but were poor, saying the spirit of poverty needed to be "rebuked" in a region where local people were living in deficiency despite "sleeping on copper".
Chief Chipepo revealed that he was overjoyed by the PF's pronouncement to put more money in the pockets of the people and challenged locals to fully embrace the government's goodwill and engage foreign financiers who were waiting to bankroll the projects pending completion of procedural documentation.
"God gave you the mines with the copper and you have to make sure that you do what you want to do with the copper. So you can see that the chiefs are not just watching the copper going to other people. The government wants to empower the people of Zambia," said chief Chipepo, amid applause from the audience which included several regional traditional leaders.
Labels: CHIEF CHIPEPO, MINING
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Some more wisdom from Sindamisale
By Editor
Sun 20 June 2010, 04:00 CAT
What the Zambian people are seeking is genuine democracy in which the political leaders are servants of the people, of the electorate and not its masters.
Poverty will not be meaningfully addressed in this country until we have honest and humble political leaders who see politics as a vocation to serve their people; who see politics as a way of building up society for the common good; who are aware that politics is an area of great importance for promoting justice, development and community among all.
For these reasons, we urge our people to vote wisely in whatever elections they participate in and only vote for people who are known for their honesty, ability, dedication and concern for the welfare of all.
This is effectively what Col Panji Kaunda is urging our people to seriously consider. We agree with Col Panji that “…since 1991, our government has been a government of politicians and not of Zambians” and that our leaders are just serving themselves and not the people they are elected to serve.
Col Panji reminds us of the deep inequalities in our society. While some people are using political power to enrich themselves, to live well, the great majority of our people are facing increasing poverty and despair. The great majority of our people are worse off today than they were in 1991 when Dr Kenneth Kaunda left government.
Yes, there are many consumer goods in our shops today. There are all sorts of brands of this and that product. The liberation of South Africa and the end of the apartheid regime and the sanctions that surrounded it has ensured a continuous flow of all sorts of consumer goods into our country. The shortages that we used to experience before freedom in South Africa are no longer there.
But this does not mean that our people are today living better than they were before. Over 70 per cent of our people live on less than a dollar a day with no access to the basic services required in an organised society. In villages where people used to have three meals a day, including tea and bread, today they can hardly afford a meal. KK’s government cared for the poorest of our people and tried to make them the centre or focus of government policy. The social inequalities were not as glaring as they are today.
But we know the main source of all this wealth that individuals seem to possess today – government business, tenderprenuership, corruption and outright theft of government resources. But the poor are not benefitting from all this. Their situation is getting worse. And it is not only the poor in rural areas because there is also a growing urban poor.
There is anger in this country at the increasing poverty and despair, the devastation brought about by the approaches of the successive MMD governments to our people’s problems.
But strangely, this anger seems to be mixed with despair, a feeling that seems to suggest that the problems are just too great, too complex, to be dealt with by any government or any policy. Probably the government propaganda that continuously tried to inculcate this feeling in our people is working. We disagree with it, we contend it, because there are alternatives to this madness, irrationality, wastefulness and corruption that is depriving our people of essential services and a better life.
And Col Panji understands and articulates these problems very well and what needs to be done because he is from the people, he is of the people, he lives with the same realities as everybody else lives with in that rural sub boma of Sindamisale.
Today, so many people want to become members of parliament or presidents. For what? Talking to some of them, one clearly sees that they have no interests of the people at heart. They simply want to get into public office because of ambition or pleasure or for some of them for a job to make some money. But you can’t play politics, games with people’s lives. The people will not, cannot, abide by posturing.
In late 2008, we held presidential elections that brought Rupiah Banda to power. Rupiah and his friends celebrated the electoral victory. But whose victory was that? Certainly not victory for the people. We say this because all that we see arising from that victory are casualties; we see all the casualties. They are not to be found among the political leaders in government and in parliament; they are to be found among the people whose jobs are destroyed, whose sources of livelihoods have been lost, whose services are cashed, whose living standards are pushed down to deeper depths of insecurity and misery. These are vile times and something has to be done to move our people out of this misery.
This reminds us of KK and his comrades. They had no limitations in terms of resources than we probably have today. But look at what they did for the people.
They truly put jobs and services and the wellbeing of their people before other considerations. They didn’t steal or abuse public resources to enrich themselves.
And their lives today show clearly what type of government they led. These comrades have nothing other than their dignity; they live poor lives but still go around with dignity and a smile on their faces. They had to make hellish choices. We understand it. We must agonise with them in the choices they had to make. They found ways. They used all their creativity to find ways that would best protect those whom they were elected to defend. KK and his comrades were leaders prepared to take decisions, to meet obligations, to give service. They knew life was real, life was earnest – too real, too earnest to live to chance and to allow them to mistake their own individual interests for those of the people, especially the poor.
There is need to address the issues that Col Panji is raising if we have to harbour any hope of a reversal of fortunes for the poor. There is need to know where we are going and how we are going to get there and when we are going to get there. There is no need to just drift along hoping something good will come our way by some luck or fortune.
There is need for all our people to unite on this score. They have united in the past to change things, but no time will be more important than next year.
We are now engaged in a struggle for the souls and future of Zambia. And most of all, we are the trustees of a dream that KK and his comrade have passed on to us. They left us their vision, their values and the hopes they awakened. Our journey to progress and prosperity for our country is unfinished. We need to change things in order to march again towards these enduring ideals and we shouldn’t settle for things as they are. We must work unceasingly to lift this nation to a higher destiny, to a new plateau of compassion.
And each time anyone of us stands up, like the way Col Panji has done, for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. And a mixture of these, from all sorts of directions, is unstoppable and can deliver our people from poverty and injustice.
The future beckons us. Wither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To free the common man from poverty and despair and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every citizen of this country. We have hard work ahead, there should be no resting for any of us till we redeem the pledge the liberators of our country made to our people, till we make all the people of Zambia what destiny intended them to be. We cannot continue to have a country plagued by so many inequalities and injustices because such a country cannot achieve anything. We can’t continue to have a political leadership that tries to live in the skies when people have no food, medicines and shelter. We need a political leadership that squares up to the challenges and problems facing our people. Politics is not a casino where people go and gamble; politics is a very serious matter because it deals with people’s lives. Those who are not serious should have no place in the political leadership of our country.
This is why we have to take very seriously this wisdom, this additional wisdom and compassion from the man from Sindamisale – Col Panji. We can question so many things about him but we cannot question his understanding and compassion for our people and the way they live.
Labels: CHIEF CHIPEPO, PANJI KAUNDA, WOMEN
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Sinyinda advises Chipepo residents against marrying off daughters
By Sandra Lombe in Siavonga
Sun 20 June 2010, 04:00 CAT
HEADMAN Sinamugulu of chief Chipepo’s area has disclosed that his 19-year-old daughter has been stopped from going back to school by a man that eloped with her.
This came to light when education deputy minister Clement Sinyinda toured and monitored progress on schools being constructed and those completed in the area.
Sinyinda urged the community to educate girls and discouraged parents from marrying off their daughters at an early stage.
“You will benefit more if you educate a girl. Educate girls you will not go wrong. Women don’t allow your husband to marry off your daughters. Bring them back to school, even those with children,” he said.
And Noah Chisamu, who is headman Sinamugulu, said he really wanted his daughter, Ark Chisamu, to get back to school but her husband could not allow her despite them being on separation.
“I can’t understand, I took the case to Chipepo local court, but the court ruled in favour of the boy, the court has refused that she goes back and said my daughter is married so I shouldn’t disturb her. The boy (Hilton Siakanomba) that eloped with my daughter does not want her to go back to school,” he said.
Chinamu said Siakanomba who was in grade nine eloped with his daughter in 2008 and had a child with her.
“He is at school and my daughter is with me. He says it’s just a break down, but he doesn’t want her to go to school. He is scared that she will be educated and meet other people. The child is over 2 years old and she can go back to school. I am willing to take her back to school. She stopped in grade seven but I want her to go back,” said Chinamu. “We are scared of courts.”
But Sinyinda expressed happiness that there were parents willing to take their children back to school.
“Together we must send that child to school, you have a right to go to magistrates’ court because she eloped and you didn’t agree. You and your child are protected by law,” Sinyinda told Chisamu.
And Siavonga district commissioner Fred Siasuntwe told Chisamu to appeal against the local court’s judgment.
Labels: CHIEF CHIPEPO, CLEMENT SINYINDA, WOMEN
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Chiluba vows to fight back
Written by Chibaula Silwamba
Sunday, September 27, 2009 2:12:31 AM
FORMER president Frederick Chiluba has said the Bible allows him to fight back those people that fight him and that those denouncing him are poking God’s eye. And Chiluba denounced the Dutch, Danish and Americans for embracing homosexuality and warned Zambians against allowing donors to pollute Zambia with their dirty money.
Officiating at the launch of Save Rural Africa Foundation (SARAF) founded and headed by chief Chipepo of Siavonga district in Southern Province in Lusaka on Friday, Chiluba quoted biblical examples justifying that Christians must fight back using the same means that their enemies were using.
“Somebody was telling [me] the other day, ‘no even if you are insulted don’t speak back, keep quiet’. I said, ‘where in the Bible have they said so? Where? Where have they told you?’ If Moses did not speak to Pharaoh, the Israelites would have still been in bondage. God didn’t tell Moses, go and stand. He said, ‘go and tell him!’ Speak! You have to speak to the enemy,” Chiluba said. “If the enemy uses the voice, use your voice back. If King David did not speak back to Goliath, that is why those other Israelites were shrinking and shivering because they didn’t know how to fight the enemy. You don’t fight the enemy in silence. Speak out in the name of Jesus. You know what Jesus told King Herald when he was talking nonsense, He said ‘go and tell that fox, he should keep quiet.’ It was Jesus the Lord Himself. Talk back to the fox.”
Chiluba warned that people denouncing him were poking God’s eye.
“When a nation brings itself to God then God will bring honour and glory to that nation and her people. Isaiah 22:24 and also the Lord said. You know this declaration [of Zambia as a Christian nation] I feel extremely confident wherever I go, wherever I am, even if I am alone, I know I am not alone. Why? Because I am assured that I did the right thing and I don’t care whether they are looking at me cruelly, I know I am very firm,” Chiluba said. “Don’t underrate my power because it’s neither by power but by the Holy Spirit. So if you continue to throw stones at one who declared Zambia a Christian nation, you are poking at God’s eye. I am the apple of His eye.”
Chiluba confessed that even before he left office, he knew that he would experience the problems he had been through after leaving office.
“Zambia is a nation truly under God. Some of you don’t understand to be truly under God; practically I do. I knew before, during and after I left office what my wife and I have gone through. Last [Thursday] night we had another meeting with prophet [Phillip] Banda from South Africa, he made a wonderful statement. He said, ‘you see, if you are not encountering difficulties in this world, if the devil is not fighting you, it means you are moving with him in the same direction.’ The devil hardly fights those he moves with. He fights those who move against him. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!” Chiluba said. “I am a new pastor, I am just graduating. Oh! I am now preaching the gospel. We must not allow anybody to fool around with us. Whereas we may not use our palm to smack them, we have to smack them with the gospel. There is firepower in the gospel. I am waiting for my church to open its doors please.”
Chiluba urged Zambians to be ready to fight donors that brought “dirty” money to pollute Zambia.
“Because we are under the covenant, there is no way even if they bring dirty money to pollute our land to destroy our children, we will call upon the name of the Lord,” he said.
He said South Africa was given dirty money to include the rights of homosexuals and prostitutes in that country’s Constitution.
“A few months back, my wife and I watched a presentation in South Africa of an organisation which has been formed to protect the rights of prostitutes. Why did that come about? I was told by one South African brother that on their way towards the inauguration of their constitution they were given aid, money and they were told, ‘if you embrace the rights of the individual, liberty of everybody including prostitutes and allow for homosexuals and lesbian marriages, we will give you this money’. We politicians face a lot of difficulties,” Chiluba explained. “Today as I talk to you, I am sure you are aware that many states in America have now legislated for homosexual marriages. Men marrying men and you know what the Bible says. But they have been allowed legally to do so. In Scandinavia, particularly in The Netherlands, in Denmark if you preach against homosexual life you will be taken to court and this is the truth. So why am I saying this? Yes! We have the Bibles. We are taking the Bibles into the villages. In fact in my opinion we may not encounter many problems in the villages. The problem will be right here in towns.”
Chiluba said Zambians must have their eyes open against European countries and the US.
“Because the battle is not as small as it sounds. Why? You may remember that the first country in Africa to gain independence is Ghana and this was 1957. What did Europe and America do when they realised that Africa had freed herself from the yoke of imperialism? The European met in 1957, that same year Ghana became independent, they met in Rome [in Italy] and thrashed out the paper they called the charter of Rome. That was intended to plan, not for Africa or with Africa but to plan against Africa in my opinion,” Chiluba said. “Whereas before then Africa, Zambia could go and borrow from one country in Europe if the other country could not accept, Zambia could go to another country, borrow money and come back and conduct her business. Europeans realised that an independent Africa determines its own destiny, Europe will lose out. So they came up with that Rome charter in 1957, which has now turned into EU [European Union] that was the forerunner to EC and the now EU.”
Chiluba said developed countries were holding African countries to ransom.
“Now we are held to ransom by these countries and when they talk about aid, it is aid with a lot of strings,” Chiluba said. “Even some brothers and sisters, who may even be members of parliament, didn’t you hear one member of parliament in a European country going to church. He goes to make an offering and when he comes back he goes to claim his money from Parliament. So who gave money to God? Parliament or himself? This is happening today. It is happening and this same man may come thinking he knows God so well that he doesn’t have to spend money on God, he can ask Parliament to do it for himself. There is no commitment, no devotion, nothing to God.”
Chiluba said the Christian values that the Europeans and Americans talked about were no longer existent.
“We have better values here. We respect God here. We respect God with all our souls and strengths, with all our love and let us not depend on the outside world to come and pollute the values that we have about our God,” Chiluba said. “There is a lot to do and a lot for us to protect especially our children and their children after us. The Bible says, ‘hold on to that which you have.’ America was founded on Christian principles but today they have stopped the Bible from being read in school. They are not holding on to that which they have. They have lost their first love.”
Chiluba observed that the world was bad nowadays.
“As your president, I can only tell you that you are great men and women of God. We are living in very difficult times not only our friends in South Africa accepted that which they didn’t want and implemented in their constitution the rights of the devil. This may be slowly coming but we must watch out. There have been attempts in this country to put the same right in the constitution. We have to be wide awake and particularly if our children understand fully what this means to them and those after them, then we will have a firm [and] strong foundation,” Chiluba said. “I therefore, your royal highness, men and women of God on behalf of my wife because the two of us agreed to come and participate, on her behalf I want to take this opportunity to thank the almighty God and appreciate the founder of SARAF chief Chipepo of Siavonga for conceiving the idea of this organisation.”
Chiluba prayed for and poured anointing oil on chief Chipepo.
And chief Chipepo urged Zambians against insulting their leaders at whatever level.
The mission of SARAF is to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to rural areas of Africa.
Labels: CHIEF CHIPEPO, CHILUBA, SARAF
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Differences over Lake Kariba boundary worry chief Chipepo
Written by Lemmy Likando in Siavonga
Wednesday, November 12, 2008 9:04:38 AM
CHIEF Chipepo of the Tonga people in Siavonga has
expressed concern over the prevailing differences involving the boundary on Lake Kariba, which is shared by Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Chief Chipepo said he is concerned with the 'violence and victimisation' that Zambian fishermen conducting their fishing business on the lake are subjected to by the Zimbabwean security.
Chief Chipepo who was speaking in an interview with ZANIS in his capacity as chairperson for Lake Kariba Inter Zonal Fisheries Management Association said urgent action was required to enable resolve the current problem.
He called on Zambian security wings to immediately convene a meeting with their Zimbabwean counterpart in order to discuss the matter and have bilateral understandings on the operations of the lake.
Chief Chipepo's call for bilateral talks comes amid continued reports of arrests and beatings of Zambian fishermen by Zimbabwean security officers on allegations that they are conducting their fishing business on their side of the lake.
Last week, a named 25- year-old man who was a resident of Siavonga's Kaleya compound was shot, at close range by Zimbabwe police officers who were carrying out patrols on the lake on allegations that he had crossed over the water boundaries together with his friends.
The three Zambian men who witnessed the shooting were seriously battered before being taken to Kariba Police Post in Zimbabwe where they were arrested and detained in cells.
Chief Chipepo disclosed that he was angered by the death of the 25-year-old man saying the Zimbabwean police needed to be reminded of the fact that killing people was not a solution.
"This lake was constructed to benefit both Zambians and Zimbabweans. It was not made so that people can be killed in cold blood. We will not condone a situation where some people want to kill others. Imagine if our security personnel also start killing those that they find crossing the water boundaries? asked chief Chipepo.
Labels: BORDERS, CHIEF CHIPEPO, LKIZFMA, SOUTHERN PROVINCE, ZIMBABWE
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