Chipata City Council dismantles 9 months’ salary arears
By Ernest Chanda in Chipata
CHIPATA mayor George Mwanza has revealed that the council has dismantled salaries arears employees were owed for nine months.
And the council has graded over 22 kilometres of the road network in compounds using the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
In an interview, Mwanza who is the youngest mayor in the country at 27, attributed the progress to good leadership at both Chipata City Council and national level.
‘’Chipata City Council as at one year ago when we were taking up leadership it had nine months’ salary arears. And as we speak today, we’re up to date. We’ve been able to actually dismantle all the nine months salary arears. And this is a demonstration of leadership at the council,’’ he told The Mast. For a long time, the city council of Chipata has been having serious challenges in terms of meeting its financial obligations in terms of paying salaries. But ever since we took over leadership, we’ve been able to work out mechanisms.’’
Mwanza explained some of the mechanisms used in dismantling the arears.
‘’One of them is we’ve been able to cancel old receipt books, obviously that were subject to pilferage. And we were able to print new receipt books using government printers, which is actually a secure source, to ensure that there’s prudence in terms of use of resources,’’ Mwanza said. ‘’But also, we want to thank the President and the government for having supported us through the Local Government Equalisation Fund. This fund has been consistent ever since the new dawn government took over leadership. And there has been an improvement in local resource mobilisation and revenue management. So, the two put together, coupled with good leadership we’ve been able to actually ensure that we sort out all the nine months’ salary arears. As we speak today the City Council is up to date with salary arears. Our workers are actually waiting for the August salaries that they will be getting this week and next week. The morale is high and everyone is looking forward to working everyday.’’
And when some other places are complaining about failure to access CDF, Mwanza said Chipata residents have started using the fund adequately.
He explained some of the projecst being carried out using the CDF.
‘’So, we are doing about over 11 kilometres under the Constituency Development Fund. This is the 2020 and 2021 CDF. And we are also doing another over 22 kilometres under the Local Government Equalisation Fund. So, in total we are doing over 30 kilometres of feeder roads,’’ Mwanza said further.
‘’Now, for the feeder roads in the city we’re basically connecting roads in compounds. Obviously, we have two sets of roads; we have the tarmacs that require upgrading to bituminous standard and they were last done 10 years ago. So, the status is quite bad and that requires a lot of resources. But the resources that we have under CDF we’re doing 11 kilometres under the old CDF and it’s working out very well. So, we’ve graded over 11 kilometres in different wards of Chipata Central, for example.’’
Under the Local Government Equalisation Fund, Mwanza spelt out projects being done.
He thanked the central government for continued release of allocations under the Fund.
‘’And under the equalisation the budget line is about K500,000; and then the budget line for the CDF is about K326,000. Now for the CDF we’re using equipment from ZNS so that we really try and minimise the cost and actually open up roads,’’ he explained. ‘’And these are compound roads that were never worked on for a long time. And our people were actually suffering from a lot of challenges in terms of accessing amenities. For example, if they have to access a health post and they have to access a very important service in the night they were having serious challenges.’’
Mwanza nevertheless hailed his team which has been able to devise plans for development in the city.
‘’And we are happy that during our leadership we’ve been able to commit resources to the people’s points of needs in terms of ensuring that we work on these roads. And we are engaging central government so that we can get support. The President has assured us that he’s going to unlock challenges that we may not unlock at a local level,’’ said Mwanza. ‘’We are also proud that the President has given us CDF under the 2022, and he’s also been giving us the Local Government Equalisation Fund. These are resources that have been helping us to provide services at a local level. Ever since we took over office one year ago, we’ve been able to provide responsive leadership that actually addresses the needs of the people in terms of the road sector, in terms of the water sector. We had a critical challenge of water in the city, and we’ve been able to actually look out for resources from different partners. And direct aid came through to respond to my request, and we’ve been able to address challenges of water which has so far benefitted 40,000 people in different parts of Chipata.’’