Hunger Stalking rural Zambia

By Pelekelo Liswaniso

Hunger is not a pleasant experience. In fact no one wants to be hungry at any time. Even those who fast for reasons best known to themselves, don’t envy the experience because the immediate effect of hunger is pain, which if prolonged, can be severe, and could lead to death.

We are therefore disturbed about reports of looming hunger in Gwembe, in Southern province and Kalabo in Western province, where local people are feared to be on the verge of starvation.

Chief Simumba of the Tonga people in Siavonga is worried that his subjects may not survive unless Government provides relief food. Most people in the chiefdom did not produce enough food during the last farming season because of drought and the destruction of crops by elephants.

We are worried that what could be seen to be isolated cases of people without food could turn out to be a national disaster of famine if urgent measures are not taken to avert the hunger situation.

We are concerned because prolonged hunger or famine can result in death and disease, destruction of livestock and seed, crime and other social disorders, and unnecessary migration by the people.

People who lack sufficient food lose weight and grow extremely weak. Many victims become so feeble that they die from diarrhea or some other ailment. Old people and young children usually are the first to die and we do not wish to see this happen, especially in the wake of a national bumper maize harvest in the last season

It’s however commendable that in Kalabo, the government has already swung into action, and so far 900 tonnes of relief maize have been sent to the area through the Disaster Management Unit (DMMU), which was working in conjunction with the World Food Programme (WFP).

We hope the same speed is applied in Southern province so that the people of Gwembe, Siavonga and Sinazongwe are equally distributed with relief food.

What is worrying us further is that reports of hunger in Gwembe and Kalabo seem to have become a perennial problem and there appears to be no solution.

Kalabo district was last year among the areas in Western province which were affected by flooding and heavy rain, causing destruction to crops and infrastructure like bridges.

We fear this destruction could happen again this year considering the high rainfall the country is experiencing.

We know government has a multitude of priorities but averting hunger and death should be treated as an emergency because a myriad of other problems can follow.

Cholera, for example can easily break out in an area where there is hunger and such a disease can easily take many lives because people weakened by hunger do not recover easily from disease.

Large numbers of people affected by hunger can also flee from their homes and live in crowded areas where they will scrounge for the little food they find and further compounding the spread of diseases. Such people will also frequently drink impure water, which can carry disease.

Destruction of livestock and seed can also prolong the disaster. Many farm animals will be killed for food. Farmers may end up eating all their seed before the planting season begins. Such damaging losses will hinder them from returning to a normal life and may lower production levels.

Crime and other social disorders would increase too. Crimes such as looting, prostitution, and theft can multiply. Desperate people will steal food and other items they would not obtain otherwise. They may sell stolen goods to buy something to eat.

There may be scattered outbreaks of violence, particularly near food distribution centers. This is not what we want to see in the Gwembe valley or any place for that matter. Government should quickly move in and help the people.

Case of abuse of commuter rights

To: The Deputy Director- Road Transport
Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA)
P.0 Box 32167
Dedan Kimathi Road
Lusaka

From: Pelekelo Liswaniso
C/o Zambia Daily Mail
P. O. Box 31421
Lusaka

16th March, 2009


Dear Mr. M’tonga,

Re: Complaint against Kuhoma Transport at Inter-City Bus Terminus

I wish to bring to your attention to the ridicule and inconvenience the travelling public are subjected to at Lusaka’s Inter-City Bus Terminus, perpetrated by operators such as Kuhoma Transport.

Some of these cases border on shameless day-light robbery, fraud, cheating and harassment, contrary to the laws of Zambia.

A case in point is yesterday on Sunday, March 15, 2009, when my son and his friend, who were returning to school in Ndola, bought bus tickets at 07:20 hours, in the presence of my wife, after being assured by the conductor of ABL 2284, which was travelling to the Copperbelt that it was a time bus, scheduled to leave at 08:00 hours when in fact not. The bus belongs to Kuhoma Transport of Kitwe.

My son and his friend innocently jumped on the bus after paying K120, 000 (K60, 000 each), hoping to leave at 08:00 hours and arrive in Ndola safely and in time to also safely catch a taxi to the boarding school.

However, the bus did not leave at 08:00 hours as promised. The two pupils were even more shocked three and half hours later when they were told that the bus would not leave until it was full.

Realising the predicament in which they were and the fear of arriving in Ndola in the night, as it had happened before when my son had spent seven hours languishing in a bus at the station in a similar circumstance earlier at the beginning of the school term, he called me from his mobile at 10:30 hours complaining about the delay.

I rushed to the Inter-City Terminus immediately, only to find the said bus with only a handful of passengers inside. The purported passengers who were earlier seen on the bus had vanished in thin air.



When I inquired from the man, the conductor I suppose, who had sold my son the tickets, and still had a receipt book in his hands on why the bus had not left for the Copperbelt as scheduled at 08:00, he rudely retorted that it was not a time bus and that it would only leave the station when it was full.

Please find attached the photo of the said conductor in checked shirt besides the Kuhoma Bus.

I informed the said conductor and the colleagues he was with that I was worried about the safety of my son and his friend as they were pupils and I did not want them to arrive in Ndola in the night and subsequently asked for a refund so that they could get on to another bus.

To my surprise, the conductor simply walked away and said in Bemba mixed with English that: “ Mule umfwa, te time bus iyii, and there is no refund.”

Realising that I was heading nowhere with the bus crew, I was prompted to ask for the telephone number of Kuhoma Transport and one of them said I could contact the owner on Cell: 097-7-822868.

I immediately rang the number and to my further disappointment, the man who answered my call and claiming that he was the owner of the bus flatly refused to listen to my explanation and that no refunds will be made because it was not a time bus.

I was shocked to say the least because his reaction was out of this world. He was rude and his answers had no resemblance of any public relations at all. He humiliated me even further for trying to get some redress from him saying before he cut off the line that I could go anywhere and complain if I wished.

Ha… I was dumb founded…! A bus owner speaking to a customer like that. I shuddered and wondered what had befallen me. Again, I had hit a brick wall. I gave up and left them.

I then inquired from other buses and fortunately found a Euro Bus almost full with passengers travelling to the Copperbelt. I pleaded with the bus crew, and luckily, they sold me two tickets and the boys, retrieved their luggage from the Kuhoma Bus and boarded the Euro bus which left ten minutes later. I parted away with K120, 000 (for the two boys). What an agonizing day!

I decided to go home and almost treated the episode a closed matter but on second thoughts, I decided to report the matter to the Police within the Inter-City Bus Terminus. The matter was officially recorded at 11:30 hours the same day on Sunday, March 15, 2009 and to my disappointment again, the Police said there was nothing they could do.

I left the Police Post feeling more demoralised and wondered whether they were any laws being respected vis-à-vis the rights of the traveling public.

It is with this background that I have found no other way of addressing the matter than lodging this complaint to your good office, hoping that sanity prevails at Inter-City Bus Terminus.

Kindly facilitate my refund from Kuhoma Transport for the fare by my son and his friend as they did not travel by that bus.

I also hope that measures are introduced to protect the travelling public from such ill-treatment and RTSA should strongly consider opening a help desk at Inter-city bus station to curb such unscrupulous bus crews.

I thank you in anticipation.


Pelekelo Liswaniso
Online/Production Editor
Cell: 097-7-280464


c.c Commuter Rights Association of Zambia
c.c. Zambia Consumer Association (ZACA)

Crackdown down unscrupulous bus operators

By Pelekelo Liswaniso

TRAVELLING by bus or coach, especially now that we have a lot of road-worthy fleets is supposed to be enjoyable but not any more because of the unbecoming behavior of some bus operators especially at Inter-City Bus Terminus in Lusaka.

Despite the abundance of buses in the country, the terminus has become a no- go area and a nightmare if one has no choice but to use a bus to travel out of the capital and this is very disturbing.

What first hits a traveler the moment they enter the Inter-City Terminus area is a horde of calls boys, who in their quest to get a tip from bus crews literary drag customers to the waiting buses.

Worse still, passengers are subjected to unwarranted ridicule and unnecessary inconvenience, perpetrated by some unscrupulous transport operators who claim to be running scheduled buses when in fact not.

Travellers are made to buy tickets in advance on promises by unscrupulous bus crews that the buses they were boarding would start off at a given time when this was not the case.

Many travellers including pupils returning to schools are forced to wait for long hours before the buses they have boarded start off for their destinations. Most of them end up travelling or arriving late in the night, which is risky, while others end up spending nights on the buses to wait for dawn the following day to get to their final destinations.

There is a lot of unfair business practice amongst bus operators and having a Police Post at the station was not helping matters because nothing is done to address the complaints and yet some of the cases border on shameless day-light robbery, fraud, cheating and harassment, contrary to the laws of Zambia.

What is more shocking is that some bus operators have allegedly employed people to sit on buses to pretend they were passengers whilst they were not and were being paid K20,000 at the end of the day for conning the travelling public. Commuter Rights Association of Zambia (CRAZ), President Aaron Kamuti disclosed this yesterday. Worse still, some distraught passengers are denied refunds when they choose to leave the buses.

It makes sad reading to learn on page 3 of today’s Zambia Daily Mail that passengers’ rights are abused on a daily basis and that the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) has been flooded with complaints.

Zambia is a country of laws and no one is above the law. It’s unacceptable that some bus operators seem to derive pleasure cheating and troubling the travelling public.

We are, however, cheered by the Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) which has warned that it will start revoking licences from operators who abuse passenger’s rights.

Hats off to RTSA director, Frederick Mwalusaka, who said yesterday, that the agency cannot sit idly while the public were being cheated and ridiculed by some bus operators.

As Mr Mwalusaka stated, time is very important in any business but this has not been the case with the operators at Inter-City Bus terminus.

For those who were in the dark about their rights, Mr Mwalusaka explained that travellers have the right under the Transport Act to get a substantial amount of the fare as refund any time they changed their mind not to travel and it was illegal for operators to refuse to do so
.
He said customers had the right to be refunded if they were not happy with the services being offered by any operator.

Yes, any operator found wanting should firmly be dealt with to bring sanity at Inter- City Bus Terminus than allow gangsters to control the area.

We are anxious to know the outcome of the petition by RTSA to the Minister of Local government and Housing Benny Tetamashimba to include the agency on the proposed boards, which would help regulate Inter-City Bus Terminus and the industry in general.

We are also asking for extra vigilance from the travelling public not only those who use the Inter-City Terminus in Lusaka but elsewhere in the country to report any misconduct by bus operators so that there is order at the stations and on our the roads.

Further measures should also be introduced to protect the travellers and we hope RTSA will consider opening a help desk at the station to curb unscrupulous behaviour.

We urge the public to also report cases of misconduct to the CRAZ and the Zambia Consumer Association (ZACA), who are the watchdogs of consumer rights.

Increased food production answer to economic woes

By Pelekelo Liswaniso

ZAMBIA is fortunate not to have been included on the just released International Monetary Fund (IMF) list of the world’s poorest countries hard hit by the global financial crisis. Those named in the report as vulnerable countries include Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan and our neighbour, Angola.

The IMF report says poor countries face greater exposure to the current crisis because they are more integrated into the international economy than they used to be.

These countries, according to the IMF, are more likely to feel the impact through a downturn in trade and falls in foreign investment and remittances - money sent home by people working abroad.

We say Zambia is fortunate because the credit crunch taking a toll in other countries is already being felt here. Our Kwacha has depreciated to an all-time low of K5,690 to US$1 and it is feared its volatility may continue.

Trade with other countries has dwindled while the backbone of our economy - the copper mines - are closing down, leaving thousands of workers jobless. Prices of commodities including, mealie meal, and the staple food have skyrocketed, plunging the country into a state of uncertainty.

However, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. The call by Bank of Zambia Governor, Caleb Fundanga, for increased food production in order for the country to earn the much needed foreign exchange through food exports, should be taken very seriously.

During a meeting with the business community in Ndola on Thursday this week, Dr Fundanga said the Zambian economy would only register growth through diversification from mining to agriculture following the drop in metal prices globally.

We agree with Dr Fundanga that this country is not poor. It has a lot of land on which to grow more food that can be exported to neighbouring countries and generate foreign exchange.

Increased food production is the only answer to the effects of the global meltdown, which is already causing havoc in many countries.

In the recent past, there was relative food security in Zambia because the country was blessed with good rains. But the policy of encouraging maize production in every region and subsidised prices did not work well for the country as this resulted in a big change in the eating habits of the people, with maize taking unusual prominence in the diet while traditional crops such as sorghum, millet an cassava were abandoned.

Apart from land, Zambia has abundant water resources which have not been fully developed and utilised for increased food production. The full exploitation of the irrigation potential, for example, can enhance and maximise farming profits, reduce the risk of financial loss due to bad weather and improve household food security.

We are aware that Government is also putting in place measures to ensure quick and equitable allocation of water rights among farmers and other users. The testing of new irrigation technologies and the transfer of appropriate technologies to the agricultural sector is also being encouraged.

Not too long ago, Zambia helped most of her neighbours to attain independence and it’s unfortunate that the country now finds itself having to import food from these countries.
With its resource endowment and vast potential, Zambia should, instead, be the one producing for export to these countries and to earn the much needed foreign exchange.

Now that the envisaged multi-facility economic zones are becoming a reality, the local business community should also take advantage of their establishment and help turn around the economy. Diversification is truly the only way out of our current economic problems.

Review Forestry Policy

By Pelekelo Liswaniso

LOOK around and you will enjoy the scenery of a green environment annually handed down to us by nature as our inheritance at this time of the year when the country is blessed with rain.

The surroundings, especially our forests, look lush and fresh because trees are growing and blossoming, which is a healthy sign. But this is deceptive. Somewhere deep in the forests, some illegal activities are taking place.

Charcoal burners are busy logging and burning trees. Other people are busy exporting timber illegally and getting filthy rich. Trees are being removed on a daily basis without due regard to the long-term effects this will have on our country. It’s green now, but for how long if deforestation continues unabated? This is a matter of serious concern.

Which is why we are greatly cheered by President Banda’s announcement on Wednesday that Government will this year review the country’s forestry policy with a view to improve management of the forest resources and curb illegal timber exports and charcoal burning.

Government is further determined to mainstream climate change issues which include the forests in all development plans and strategies to insulate the country’s economy from climate shocks.

President Banda assured the nation about these measures when a team of visiting European Union (EU) students, teachers and journalists paid a courtesy call on him at State House.
Hats off to the President! We urge the relevant authorities to follow up his concerns very seriously and ensure that our forests are protected.

The negative effects of deforestation are not a figment of academic conjecture – they are real and there for all to see. Apart from the well known fact of encouraging desertification, deforestation is a contributor to global warming and has been cited as one of the major causes of the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect refers to the change in the steady state temperature of the earth caused by the presence of an atmosphere containing gases that absorb and emit radiation. Zambia is part of the global village and should be seen to act along with other international players in reducing greenhouse emissions. It can do so by, for example, curbing rampant deforestation to help make the atmosphere clean.

The nation ought to know that deforestation also affects our water cycle. In a country where most of the people do not have access to clean or adequate water, any disturbance in the water cycle will spell nothing but disaster for many.

We should also point out that trees extract groundwater through their roots and release it into the atmosphere. When part of a forest is removed, there will be no trees to evaporate away this water and this results in a much drier climate.

Further, deforestation reduces the content of water in the soil and groundwater as well as atmospheric moisture. Deforestation also reduces soil cohesion, resulting in erosion, flooding and landslides. Now, floods and landslides are things nobody wants to see.

That’s why we welcome a review of our forestry policy to ensure that we have a framework for better management of our forest resources as a basis for the development of economic sectors such as agriculture and tourism while addressing the impact of climate change.