APART from demolishing houses, the government also intends to erase a church, bus station and a market at the Victoria Falls after offering the land to a Chinese firm, says chief Mukuni.
He said Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Palm Grove area was on Zesco’s Victoria Falls Power Station land.
In January 2017, chief Mukuni, whose chiefdom cuts across Livingstone, Kazungula and Zimba, fought off attempts by State House to offer the curio market at the Victoria Falls to a named Chinese who sought to erect a Spin-Sational Ferris Wheel.
The government using Zesco in an eviction notice dated April 29, 2020 to about 22 employees, says the houses are in the Musi-oa-Tunya National Park.
“NOTICE OF EVICTION: Kindly be informed that the area housing the house you reside in is a national park, namely the Musi-oa-Tunya National Park not suitable for human habitation in terms of the Zambia Wildlife Act Number 14 of 2015. We are therefore giving you three months notice to vacate the house at hand with effect from 7 May 2020,” stated the letter signed by Zesco director of legal services McRobby Chiwela and copied to the utility’s managing director Victor Mundende.
Chiwela said the lease agreement allowing tenants to occupy the houses had also expired, adding that the three months notice was just a “humanitarian gesture”.
The letter was also copied to the director power generation, director human resources and the two labour movements, namely POGAWUZ and MESAWU.
But a wildlife department senior officer who spoke on condition of anonymity said there has never been any concern raised by the department over the housing units at the power station.
However, Mukuni said the government was under pressure from a Chinese national who intends to put up tourism related development around the Victoria Falls World Heritage Site.
“I saw the eviction notice and later discovered that a church and a bus station are also to be demolished. If this act to demolish Sacred Heart Catholic Church is not demonic, then what is? The whole programme is a government plan and Zesco is being used as a smokescreen because no one can say no to what State House says. They are giving in to a Chinese, disregarding Zambians. We have a market and a bus station in the area and these are so to be demolished…I wonder what UNESCO will do to us if they find out that the Victoria Falls is yet again under threat,” he said. “UNESCO can deregister the site from the World Heritage list and this can cause some huge diplomatic problems between us and Zimbabwe.”
Mukuni added that Livingstone had a lot of land for development which could be given to the Chinese.
He said such pieces of land exist in the Musi-oa-Tunya National Park.
“The other thing is that government through Zesco did stop a Hungarian national from setting up a balloon project for aerial viewing of the falls and the man now intends to take legal action against Zesco,” said Mukuni.