PERMANENT SOLUTION TO LUSAKA FLOODS
People displaced and Lives ever at risk year in year out
By Miles B. Sampa, MP (28.03.2023)
I watched with keen interest on ZNBC the floods areas tour by President HH, the Mayor Chilando and Dr Pollen (DMMU PS). I could not help but remember similar tours of me as Mayor and then President ECL and DMMU’s Chanda Kabwe.
I remembered we did this trio tour about every year but with zero lasting solutions. Chawama, Kanyama, Matero and Munali was always venue for annual Lusaka version of the Kuomboka ceremony that involves over flooding of not the Zambezi river but people’s homes. Imagine bedrooms with beds submerged under uninvited water. People have to ‘paddle’ away from their homes except there is no higher plains of Limulunga to go to until end of rains season. They have to come back to same home on daily basis for shelter however impossible that is. Within this episode the risk of disease like dysentery and cholera pops in. Can be catastrophic if not handled delicately.
President HH and the Mayor are poised to go through this Lusaka traditional ceremony tour on annual basis unless the President can be brave to do what all his predecessors have been unable to do this far. This is to find huge sums of money estimated at around $200M to do the following ;
1) Demolish all houses in the affected areas built on the City’s natural rainfall draining routes. Some families have been living on these homes for over 20 years and compensation would have to be made.
2) Build two more Bombay type of long mass drainage systems on both ends of the city running from South ends (Makeni) to Kanyama and end up past Matero into Katuba area.
The other one would have to run from Chalala Shantumbu area through Salama park to Kaunda Square ending up Ngwerere area.
3) Get laws passed to criminalize anyone involved in the authorization and construction of structures along designated city water drainage pathway areas.
As it was in my days as Mayor, the tours would end with headline orders and instructions to me as Mayor on a list of must do to ‘urgently’ to deal with the floods and victims therein. Well the Mayor office in Zambia is about most toothless entire Africa. It has zero powers to get anything implemented even when in my case all powers be were sponsored by the then ruling PF on whose ticket I was. Everyone united to ensure my office did not function effectively kaya for one reason. Ine kudabwa. Suprised no one wanted me to function and shine in my mayoral office.
Now even worse for the current Mayor that is opposition and in minority in the chambers that has UPND majority Councillors. If she went to a sinister officer to seek work support either her or the minister visited will get pointing fingers from their parties. In Zambia we put intra and inter party politicking first ahead of common development agenda for the good of ordinary citizens.
To resolve to the Lusaka city floods AKA the 2nd annual Kuomboka traditional ceremony, close to $200M needs to be sourced be it from the World Bank or IMF grants or processed as capital soft loan from the West, China or Japan.
I have done a lot of research on solutions to the Lusaka flooding in the past many years and at one point even came across a report that was done by JICA. Their findings all pointed to the solution I have enshrined above and hereby given for free to whom it may concern.
Will President HH be the one that will nip this flooding problem in the bud or will also be like his predecessors continue throughout his reign to just attend the annual Lusaka city traditional ceremony with the ZNBC cameras around. Only time will tell.
Miles Bwalya Sampa,
Truth & Solutions Researcher
Matero MP
Former Mayor of Lusaka City