Community house/statehouse debate – is this a real issue now?
The demand by some section of the citizenry that president HH must move to statehouse has gained so much momentum. I have been wondering whether this is an issue we should spend so much time on as a country or not. To start with, statehouse, also called plot one, is meant to be the official residence of the republican president. Being plot 1 of the land, it is expected that it would provide the residence of the highest standard, in terms of comfort and safety, on the land. The head of state obviously deserves this kind of comfort and safety.
Does the current statehouse provide this kind of environment? Most unlikely. I say so because president RB is on record for complaining about the state of statehouse and actually made some significant moves to construct new statehouse. President sata had some hard times moving to statehouse as he is on record for complaining about the state of statehouse. I also understand that President lungu barely lived in nkwazi house as he spent most of his presidency at state lodge. This should not be surprising considering that statehouse was constructed in the more than 60 years ago and the level of maintenance of the 1st house does not appear to match the level of deterioration. President HH has opted to continue staying at his community house because statehouse as confirmed by previous heads of state is no longer able to serve its purpose – provide the highest standard of safety and comfort to the first family. It appears community house is currently serving that purpose very well. Infact, now that we have a president who has a home providing the level of safety and comfort statehouse was supposed to offer, the country has an opportunity to use this time to either refurbish or complete overhaul the current nkwazi house just like RB wanted to do 10 years ago.
Does the country have resources to build a new statehouse now? Izt a priority? The real question before us now should not be whether HH should move to statehouse or not but whether the state should commit resources now to build a new statehouse. Brebner changala in his article agrees that statehouse is dilapidated but still insists that the president should move to statehouse and live like the Zambian people he chose to serve. Moving to statehouse and living like ordinary Zambians in the same sentence is oxymoronic. A president living in a dilapidated house contradicts the very essence statehouse was founded. Statehouse is supposed to be the country’s first house and has never been meant to provide an environment similar to people that voted for the president. Statehouse has always provided the best facilities in terms of comfort and safety to the head of state unless things have changed under HH. To demand that president HH moves in statehouse in its current state is highly hypocritical and unreasonable. As a matter of fact, what the president HH has done should actually be highly commendable. Instead of committing resources to build new statehouse or overhaul statehouse now and maybe demand that the state provides alternative accommodation during this period, HH has offered his community house to provide shelter to the 1st family for free. We should just accept that the country currently has no habitable house for the president and therefore should have been paying for alternative place to provide safe and comfortable residence for the head of State. By living in his community house, HH has done the exact contrast to what the former head of state has done, who despite having own residence, has opted to make the state foot his accommodation bills simply because he is entitled to a presidential retirement home even when he has his own.
The freedom of speech we are enjoying now, thanks to president HH, should be applied to provide proper checks and balances not this issue we have been on for months now. CDF is being released and we would do well to get involved so that there is transparency and accountability in the application of those resources. In the meantime , regarding statehouse, we can use the next five years of HH’s presidency to build and fully renovate statehouse to make it habitable again. This way we would not put so much stress on the already stressed treasury thanks to the pf regime.
Concerned citizen