Chawama paved roads vandalised

BARELY two months after President Michael Sata launched the Pave Zambia 2000 Project in Lusaka’s Chawama, some residents in the township’s Nkoloma Ward One have started vandalising the paving bricks.

Area councillor Lawrence Sichalwe, who confirmed the development in an interview with the Sunday Times, said the residents who were vandalising the road were putting paving bricks they were removing on their door-steps to prevent flooding as the road is on higher level than their yards.

Mr Sichalwe said the area experienced flooding during the rainy season because of a lack of drainage and wondered why the contractor had not worked on the drainage system and yet the Road Development Agency (RDA) had included that component as part of the contract.

A check on Nyerere Road revealed that some paving bricks had been removed on certain sections.

Asked what was being done to stop people from vandalising the road infrastructure, Mr Sichalwe said people were being sensitised to desist from the vice and warned of prosecution.

“The law is there and it will have to take its course,” Mr Sichalwe said.

“However, we have been sensitising the community to desist from vandalising the road infrastructure.”

Chawama Constituency is one of the beneficiaries of the Pave Zambia 2000 Project, to be undertaken in all the 10 provinces at an estimated cost of K1.6 billion, and is expected to create more than 20,000 jobs countrywide.

Meanwhile, area Member of Parliament Edgar Lungu, who toured Wards One, Two and Three to check on development projects, implored the RDA and Lusaka City Council to ensure that drainage facilities were put up as soon as possible to avoid flooding and damage to Nyerere Road in his constituency.

“We are calling upon the Lusaka City Council, like I have said and the RDA to protect this road (Nyerere) and protect our people,” Mr Lungu, who is Home Affairs minister said.

[times of zambia]