Who built Mulungushi, ZANACO HQ, FINDECO?
#SNAPSHOTINHISTORY: FORMER YUGOSLAV ENGINEERS AND ZAMBIA
IN 1970, Kenneth D. Kaunda, then President of Zambia, faced a crisis. He had called a conference of nonaligned nations in Lusaka and with just four months to go, there was no place for the delegates to meet. President Kaunda engaged Former Yugoslav engineers from Energoprojekt, Yugoslavia’s biggest construction concern, and told them he needed a 4,000-seat convention hall and 65 presidential villas.
Indeed, the next day the company’s chief architect was standing in a bush, telling excavators where to dig, while draftsmen in Belgrade drew up blueprints. Exactly 115 days later, two weeks ahead of the deadline, the Mulungushi International Conference Centre, which was designed and built for the Non-Aligned Movement Conference and the Mulungushi Village, which had 62 villas and 4 presidential villas was ready.
The former Yugoslav engineers also built the Kafue Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station. President Kaunda would later engage the Former Yugoslav engineers to do a security up grade at State House. The engineers secretly built two huge underground bunkers as a secret command center for Zambia.
The underground bunkers were bomb-proofed labyrinth equipped with living quarters, a broadcasting station, meeting rooms and a cache of weapons. One bunker lies five levels by elevator beneath the State House. The other is a seven-level basement tucked under a hill in State Lodge area near ZAF twin Palm area. The engineers also built houses along Ngumbo road as well as the former Celtel headquarters and other locations along Presidents Lane.
The other projects built by the Former Yugoslav engineers are Findeco House, which at 106 metres is still the tallest building in the country; the 300-room five-star Pamodzi Hotel; the ZANACO Head Office with its 15 floors; Zambia National Building Society (ZNBS) building and its 18 floors; the University Teaching Hospital (UTH); military and police facilities; and the Zambia National Credit and Savings Bank head office.
(Pictures by Ilija Gubić, John Reader)