-Luo calls for village registers

Luo calls for village registers

Namwala, June  6, 2013, ZANIS– Chiefs and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkandu Luo has appealed to traditional leaders in the country to develop a system of taking  stock of people  residing in their chiefdoms.

Prof Luo has advised the traditional leaders to develop village registers to enable them know the population of their subjects for development planning purposes.

Prof Luo added that registers also help to trace criminals seeking refuge in villages while at the same time making the work of the police easy when tracking suspects .

The Minister was speaking in Namwala  in  Chief Nalubamba’s chiefdom when she toured Mbeza and Shikalapu village accompanied by her Permanent Secretary Coillard Chibonta .

Professor Luo also expressed concern on the rising number of people abusing alcohol in most villages around the country.

She said that her Ministry is mapping up a strategy to fight alcohol abuse in villages because this leads to low productivity because most of the maize and other farm products are from villages.

The Minister appealed to Chiefs to punish people who spend most of their time drinking beer without doing anything productive such as farming.

And Professor Luo has commended Chief Nalubamba for setting up strategic villages in his chiefdom  which have embarked  on various self reliant projects .

She said that  the Patriotic Front Government under the leadership of President  Michaela Chilufya Sata  wants to bring development to Zambia and that this can only be done by developing villages so that rural urban migration is discouraged as the villages will be developed.

Professor Luo also pointed out that previous governments encouraged people to be lazy by providing  relief food instead of empowering communities with loans for various projects .

The Minister later toured Kabanga community school and  health post were works have been abandoned.

Professors Luo donated 5o pockets of cement while the Permanent Secretary Mr Chibonta donated a KR4000 cheque towards construction of the community initiative school.

And Mr Chibonta said government is committed to infrastructure development in chiefdoms throughout the country.