Business and Financial analyst Blessings Kafwanka says government should reconsider its plans to borrow about K11 billion from the domestic financial market in 2018, considering the country’s high debt position.
Mr. Kafwanka says the move will further crowd out the private sector especially the small and medium size enterprises.
He states that borrowing heavily from the domestic financial market will also limit the growth of SMEs who are the backbone of national development.
Mr. Kafwanka says SMEs help government in revenue generation through taxes, adding that suffocating them will affect the country’s economic growth.
A 28-year-old woman of Mindolo North in Kitwe has filed for divorce from her 45-year-old husband in the Buchi Local Court alleging that he has a habit of having sexual affairs with her close relatives.
Loveness Bwalya told Buchi Local Court senior presiding magistrate Nsama Banda that she can longer tolerate Brian Kalunga’s promiscuous behaviour and disrespect towards her.
The couple married in 2006 and has three children between them, but Bwalya said problems started in 2011 when she discovered that her husband was having sexual relations with two of her young sisters that she was keeping.
“I caught my husband red-handed having sex with one of my younger sisters.
The Luanshya Magistrates court has convicted and sentenced Pastor Abraham Mwamba of Word Touch Ministries International for faking the death of his own daughter. Mwamba, 47 faked the death of his daughter by claiming that the girl had gone to visit her mother in Miputu farming block on the outskirts of and died whilst there. The pastor went to Mpatamato Police station and obtained a death certificate which he later used to claim funeral grant from his employers Luanshya Copper Mines.
The company later learned that the child was in fact alive and reported the matter to police. The pastor was later arrested and detained after police established that the child was alive. He was charged with obtaining money by false presence, Uttering a false document and giving false information to a public officer.
Luanshya magistrate Dominic Makalicha fined Pastor K4, 500 for all the three counts or 2 years 3 months imprisonment with hard labor. Sources at Luanshya Police have disclosed that there is another pending case under investigation involving Pastor Mwamba where he faked the death of his younger brother Mutale Mwamba who was working for Luanshya Copper Mines.
The Mine was in the process of paying Pastor Mwamba over K400, 000 in life assurance payments when human resource officer informed management that Mutale was alive and staying in Kasama.
The company halted all the payments and reported the matter to the police. Police pursued Mutale in Kasama but he ran away leaving behind his bag, shoes and cellphone. Miners at Luanshya mine revealed that Pastor Mwamba learned the art of faking people’s deaths when he worked as Human Resource Officer for the defunct Mpelembe drilling.
From feeding church members with all sorts of chemicals, African pastors have taken their preaching to the next level by giving their members beer during deliverance. This a photo that is making rounds on social media of a pastor giving his church member beer in a bottle clearly labeled ‘Castle lite’. The young unidentified pastor according to a Facebook user who shared the image, prayed for the bottle of beer before administering it to some of his congregants. Is this the end of the world
THE instability in the fuel pump prices in the country will hurt small business because it will be difficult for business planning, Kitwe District Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KDCCI) vice president Lackson Ndhlovu has said.
On Tuesday this week, the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) announced the adjustment in retail fuel pump prices upwards by K1.30 citing increase in the international oil prices and the depreciation of the local currency.
Petrol has been increased from K11.67 to K 12.97, diesel is being sold at K11.09 from K9.87 and the new kerosene price is K7.82 up from K6.50 while Low Sulphur Gas (LPG) has been pegged at K13.38 from K12.16.
But Mr Ndhlovu has described the increment as unfortunate.
“The adjustment is unfortunate because it has come at a time when local businesses are struggling with the 75 per cent increment in electricity tariffs which were affected in May and September 2017 respectively,” he said in an interview yesterday.
Mr Ndhlovu said with the rising copper prices on the international market which are trading at US$7100 ,the business community expected appreciation of the local currency due to dollar inflow.
Before effecting any adjustment, the ERB should have looked into such factors because with the improvement in the copper prices, the fundamentals were expected to improve.
Mr Ndhlovu said the chamber anticipated nominal increments as the reasons ERB had given could not substantiate such an increment.
He suggested that ERB should be seeking cabinet approval before making any changes looking at the strategic nature of the business as it affected all human endeavors.
UPND President Hakainde Hichilema’s Special Assistant for Press Brian Mwiinga says the opposition party’s rally slated for Sunday has been cancelled.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Byta FM News Friday morning, Mwiinga claimed that “they have used the Ministry of Health to cancel the rally on the pretext of the cholera outbreak in some selected parts of Lusaka.”
“One would wonder why they have decided to cancel the rally today when a few days ago, there were huge public gatherings through out the country,” says Mwiinga.
“In short, they have already cancelled and that’s why they have called for that briefing.”
But Ministry of Health Spokesperson Dr.Max Bweupe tells Byta FM that the Ministry doesn’t deal with public rallies.
“That’s not in the mandate of the Ministry of Health to allow or not allow the rallies,” says Bweupe.
“That having been said that, right now this is in the middle of an outbreak of Cholera and I don’t think that it’s very advisable to have large gatherings otherwise everybody will have cholera there.”
Meanwhile, when asked if the Zambia Police has cancelled the rally, Service Public Relations Officer Esther Katongo was surprised with the information that is circulating on social media.
“Cancelled? Cancelled by who? No, as police we have not cancelled any rally,haa!” stated Katongo.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Health revealed that Kanyama has recorded six new cholera cases.
Ministry of Health Spokesperson Dr.Bweupe said since the start of the epidemic, the number of cholera cases attended to is 120.
Dr. Bweupe said Lusaka City Council is now supplying free water via kiosks in most of the affected areas and the Ministry of Health has since closed 34 out of the 199 inspected premises.
428 Wells have been clorinated and 6,040 bottles of chlorine given to households.
according to the ministerial code of conduct for the government and the Patriotic Front (PF), the statement made on fire tenders by National Planning Minister Lucky Mulusa shall be dealt with including other disciplinary measures.
And Vice President Wina regretted during question time in the National Assembly that she did not preview the statement attributed to Mr.Mulusa but was quick to mention of receieving a report.
In reaction to Government’s move to cancel the Kanyama, the United Party for National Development (UPND), says the Patriotic Front(PF) government are very uncoordinated and have continued abusing the Public Order Act.
UPND Cadres
“We challenge the Ministry of Health to with immediate effect also cancel independence day celebrations in Lusaka in order to prevent the spread of the reported cholera,” Party Spokesperson Charles Kakoma said in a statement.
He said in any case,the party wonders why the same institutions did allow people to gather in large numbers at show grounds in Lusaka and ferried some people from cholera affected Lusaka to Copperbelt just on Wednesday for National Prayers.
He said PF had clearly abused the Public Order Act and the Health Act.
“If the PF through the two ministries will not cancel independence day celebrations and any other public gatherings, Zambians must know that the PF has not reflected and confessed their evil activities,” Kakoma said,” How can you allow people from all walks of life to gather and shake hands when on the other hand you are saying UPND should not meet because there is cholera.That is hypocrisy.”
Kakoma said as a party, they have always known the PF as one organisation which fully believes in killing democracy. “We believe that the PF schemed the cancellation of our rally.
How else would someone explain the happenings in the last few days. First police took their time “studying ” the party’s notice to hold a rally and only approved it yesterday .
In the morning today, Vice-president Inonge Wina announced in Parliament that government had banned public gatherings in Lusaka. We wonder whether this includes independence day celebrations.
The Ministry of Health then wakes up this afternoon to postpone the UPND rally.
Meanwhile, preparations for Independence day celebrations have been intesinfied in Lusaka and yet markets in Kanyama, including Soweto, are still a hive of activity as if there is no cholera,” the UPND Spokesperson said.
He said the country will now wait to see if they will allow the independence day celebrations to go on in Lusaka and kill more people because there is no guarantee that cholera will in 4 days time before independence day celebrations come to an end.
He said the Police earlier today said the planned rally has not been cancelled but this evening the Ministry of health delivered a letter to the party Secretary General, Stephen Katuka, that our rally has been cancelled.
He said this kind of planned confusion is uncalled for.
“Therefore, we would like to advise government institutions such as the Police and ministry of health to exercise professionalism and avoid issuing very uncoordinated statements such as they have done on our party’s planned Kanyama rally,” he said
Authorities in South Africa are investigating a data breach which has seen the personal details of more than 30 million citizens leaked on the internet – placing them at risk of identity theft.
The information contained in a 27GB file was discovered by Australia-based internet security expert Tony Hunt earlier this week.
It contains their names, full identity numbers, income, gender, employment history, contact numbers and even home addresses.
South Africa’s population is about 54 million, so more than half of the country is affected by what has been described as the country’s worst leak of private data.
The country’s State Security Agency (SSA) would not be drawn into discussing the implications of such a breach and whether it could threaten security.
“We are looking in to the matter. There is an investigation. We are obviously very concerned,” SSA spokesperson Brian Dube told the BBC.
“It’s important to us to get to the bottom of this, see how it came about and do whatever we have to do, to deal with it,” he said.
Local newspaper, The Times, is reporting that the breach has even reached senior politicians, including President Jacob Zuma, but this has not been confirmed.
Spain’s conservative government has agreed with the socialist opposition to hold regional elections in Catalonia in January, the socialists say.
The elections are part of a package of measures being put in place to suspend the region’s autonomy, as its leader threatens to declare independence.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will announce measures to impose direct rule after a cabinet meeting on Saturday.
A referendum, outlawed by Spain, was held in Catalonia on 1 October.
Of the 43% of Catalans who reportedly voted, 90% were in favour of independence. Most anti-independence voters boycotted the ballot.
Mr Rajoy’s Popular Party (PP) has not confirmed the agreement to press for a regional vote, announced by the socialist party (PSOE).
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels on Friday, Mr Rajoy said the measures to impose direct rule would have the backing of the PSOE and the centrist party Ciudadanos.
PSOE politician Carmen Calvo announced the agreement to hold regional elections in an interview on national television on Friday.
She appealed to Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont to endorse the elections. Mr Puigdemont has refused calls from the Spanish government to abandon his secessionist campaign.
Catalonia’s government will be dissolved ahead of the vote, which is part of a package of extraordinary measures being imposed on the region.
The government has said it will trigger Article 155 of the constitution, which allows Madrid to impose direct rule in a crisis but has never been invoked in its nearly 40-year history.
Reality Check: Would Catalonia be a viable country?
The man who wants to break up Spain
The full list of measures will be drawn up during Saturday’s cabinet meeting. Spain’s Senate, controlled by the PP and its allies, would then have to approve the list.
Other measures may include taking control of Catalonia’s regional police force.
Article 155 does not give the government the power to fully suspend autonomy, and it will not be able to deviate from the list of measures.
Minister of Information Kampamba Mulenga says the K2 increment in TV levy will go into content improvement and promoting local artists.
But Mulenga dodges a question about why the national broadcaster does not cover opposition leaders.
Mulenga, who is also Chief Government Spokesperson, told journalists after the budget was presented on Friday that the extra income would help maintain digital equipment.
“Government has actually lost colossal sums of money to bring in digital equipment, to build state of the art equipment and obviously this equipment has not come in cheap. There must be a maintenance cost, we don’t want to go digital for just one month, obviously if you pay it will show and obviously to everything there is a cost attached and obviously we are moving from analogue to digital and you know the kind of infrastructure that comes with a digital and the price has to go up,” Mulenga said.
But when asked to react to opposition leaders who felt it was unfair to pay TV levy when they were not covered by the national broadcaster, Mulenga dodged the question.
“First and foremost the up of the K3 to K5 will also, this is a component and I think when this money is paid, we will obviously look at, that is why it is uh uh, well now you are making me spill the beans, but anyway, I will say it as it is. The K5 once it is gotten, obviously now ZNBC has to account, we have to account for the money and obviously part of it will go into content production. Obviously we know we have got this digital migration and most of our local artists do not have the kind of money. So we are putting up this infrastructure and now the onus lies definitely on ZNBC as they collect these monies, they must begin to promote the local artists in line with promoting local content,” she said.
“Yes we have not in the past the national broadcaster promoted local content because of constrained funds. The K3 was not adequate and of course it is an open secret that one of the avenue is that the TV levy is to service the wage bill. So now the upping of this the K3 to K5 will look also at other avenues. The troubles that ZNBC has had for a long time. Obviously we want the national broadcaster to improve. Also to help our local artists to produce as much of the local content. Actually for us right now, you head honorable [Felix] Mutati saying ‘the only foreign content that will land without that tax is education’ because you cant take education away from the people. So we as government are trying as much as possible to ensure, look we have bought this state of the art equipment, how do we obviously help our local artists? Some of them do not have the capacity but the talent is there and we don’t want to start borrowing money to start feeding into our local artists. And this is the only way possible, the maintenance, the content fund and it is all in K5 and the increment is only K2.”
Cholera cases in Lusaka have continued to rise with the cases now standing at 125.
Ministry of Health Spokesperson Dr. Maximilian Bweupe has told a media briefing that 53 percent of the recent cases are children below 2-years.
He says Matero, Chawama and 10 Miles are the areas where new cases have been reported in the last 24 hours.
Dr Bweupe says cholera cases remain restricted to Lusaka province so far, but that other provinces in the country have been put on high alert and advised to maintain hygiene.
He adds that the ministry has since disinfected 114 water wells and 43 houses in various affected areas.
Dr Bweupe has since advised the public against public gatherings and buying already cooked food from the street.
HAKAINDE Hichilema says President Edgar Lungu lives in a plane. And Hichilema says Zambians will be more destitute as the price of fuel, like presidential trips, has increased.
Featuring on Ndola’s Sun FM radio, the opposition leader said Zambia was struggling to develop because it had a president who was aimlessly travelling.
“President ekala mu ndeke (The President lives in the plane). Ba PF ngabali pa meeting elo baumfwa indeke ilelila mumulu, they start thinking that we should have been on that plane – that’s all they think about, travelling and travelling. This is why this country can’t develop. The price of maize, on the other hand, has gone down and yet there is a high price of fertiliser and farmers have been killed,” Hichilema said.
And on the fuel price increase announced on Tuesday, Hichilema said citizens’ incomes would be inundated by the numerous fees that they have to pay. On Tuesday, the Energy Regulation Board (ERB) announced the increment in retail fuel pump prices by over K1, which was effected midnight the same day. Petrol was hiked from K11.67 to K12.97 while diesel was adjusted from K9.87 to K11.09. Kerosene was increased from K6.50 to K7.82 while Low Sulphur adjusted from K12.16 to K13.38.
“Umutengo uwa fuel naunina (The price of fuel has increased), water tariffs have increased, toll gates are high [and] presidential trips have increased. Lives of ordinary Zambians will become more and more miserable now that the prices of fuel are up,” said Hichilema.
ERB vice-chairperson Ngande Mwanajiti said the Board of Directors would continue to monitor developments in the exchange rates and international oil prices and would only adjust fuel prices every 60 days when there were changes in the wholesale prices.
SOME MATERO LEVEL ONE hospital nurses in Lusaka were at midnight almost beaten when a woman gave birth in a taxi in the precinct of the medical facility after they ignored appeals to assist an expectant mother.
The pregnant woman had arrived shortly before midnight on Thursday in a taxi but hospital staff ignored calls for assistance until she gave birth.
This prompted an angry reaction from those who had brought their respective patients to the hospital.
Matero Member of Parliament Loyd Kaziya says he is saddened to hear that a mother gave birth in a taxi.
Singer, Flavour shared this photo of him kissing his daughter, Gabrielle to celebrate her 3rd birthday, today. While some social meia users love and see nothing wrong with the picture, others are of the opinion that it is inappropriate as the child is just three.
Check out some of the comments on Flavour’s Instagram page below
You may not know what your neighbour is actually up to but google can tell it all. The most googled ‘price’ phrase in Zambia currently is’ How much are abortion pills in Zambia’. Not surprising, with the procurement of the controversial $42 million fire trucks, the second most googled ‘price’ phrase is ‘How much are fire trucks’.
Abortion in Zambia is legal if done by certified and licensed medical personnel. However the country has still suffered a set back by the increase in death among young womenn resulting from unsafe abortions mainly done at home and administered by unqualified people. This google revealtion still suggests that unsafe abortion is a popular among Zambian women.
What is abnormal is seen normal by this government, United Party for National Development (UPND) Chairperson for Youth Sports and Child Development(YSCD), Michael Chuzu has charged.
And Mr Chuzu says people of Eastern Province who depend largely on farming are regretting for voting for the Patriotic Front(PF) who have punished farmers by reducing the maize floor price.
Reacting to the Teaching Service Commission of Zambia (TSCZ)’s move to pardon teachers with dubious education qualifications, Mr Chuzu said “that is not surprising in the chipantepante PF regime.”
He said it is sad that the commission could allow an illegality to go unpunished.
“What is happening is that we have teachers who have bogus certificates. They are guilty of forging certificates but this government is saying that it is okay. Let them continue teaching. What kind of pupils can they produce if they stole results. In the UPND, we are not going to tolerate that,” he said.
Mr Chuzu added that the other abnormality that was viewed normal by the PF was when President Edgar Lungu refused to step down to allow Speaker Patrick Matibin to act as President when Hakainde Hichilema and Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba handed in a Presidential Petition.
“The Judicial Complaint Commission(JCC) ruled that (President) Lungu erred when he refused to step aside when the Presidential Petition was presented. In short, he is the one who committed treason, not Hakainde Hichilema,” Mr Chuzu said.
Meanwhile, the UPND Member of the National Management Committee(NMC) says the people of Eastern Province made a ‘grave’mistake by voting for the PF which has killed the spirit of farmers by reducing the maize floor price from K85 to K60.
He said the province has suffered consequences of voting for the PF.
“The people of Eastern Province don’t easily change political parties. They assess properly before supporting a candidate but this time around they threw themselves in the ditch by voting for the PF which has destroyed farming. Mind you, we in the Eastern Province depend on farming. I went to school because of farming. Our parents could sell maize, groundnuts and sunflower for us to get educated. So it hurts me when I see the price of maize being reduced to K60,” he complined.
PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu has asked national planning minister Lucky Mulusa to resign for disparaging the procurement of 42 fire tenders by the government.
During a CIMA meeting in Lusaka recently, Mulusa said he wondered why some of his ministers were failing to explain the purchase of the fire tenders that he likened to wheelbarrows compared to the ones Liverpool City purchased at the same price.
“Perhaps we should have given better explanations than the explanations which seem contradictory, which seem not to be making sense to members of the public. We should have probably done an appraisal on fires tenders. I see my colleagues struggling to justify [the purchase]. Now we know Liverpool has this one million dollar machine. When you see it on social media, and you look at ours, it looks like a wheelbarrow…” said Mulusa while laughing as the audience joined in.
State House has now taken serious issue with Mulusa’s comments, with President Lungu asking him to resign.
“What happened is that on Monday at State House, [political advisor] Kaizar [Zulu] took that video to HE while ba Mulusa was there. When HE watched it, he asked ba Mulusa ati ‘are you the one in this video?’ Then ba Mulusa responded that ‘yes it is me’. That is how HE asked him to resign,” a State House source has narrated to The Mast. “He didn’t say anything after he was told that, but he is definitely broken. He didn’t expect that. But the problem is that he went against the values of collective responsibility because you do not expect a minister to say that publicly over a decision that has been made by a government that he is part of.”
The source further disclosed that Mulusa did not want to resign.
“So he is not ready, he doesn’t want to resign. So far, Kaizar has a task of mobilizing PF members, especially MPs, to put pressure that Mulusa is kicked out for saying that about the fire tenders,” said the source.
Several efforts to get in touch with Mulusa failed as all his mobile phones went unanswered while he was reportedly out of office.
When followed at Parliament, this reporter was not allowed entry by the security personnel.
Even a text message sent to his phone was not responded to by press time.
State House was also unavailable for comment as several phone calls to spokesperson Amos Chanda went unanswered.
PF secretary general Davies Chama’s mobile phone was switched off while the party’s media director Sunday Chanda kept clearing the call.
And Central Province PF chairperson Chanda Mutale said he was aware of the fact that Mulusa had been asked to resign but could not comment on the matter.
“That matter is beyond my jurisdiction; I am sorry I cannot comment. I know what is going on and what the President has said but I wouldn’t want to comment,” said Mutale.
TUSOLA General Dealers in Lusaka has sued the State claiming payment of K910,000 owed in foodstuff supplied to the ministries of Defence, Home Affairs and Education.
According to a claim filed in the Lusaka High Court, Tusola General Dealers delivered various goods and foodstuffs to the three ministries on unknown dates.
The company stated that after the foodstuffs were delivered, the Ministry of Finance even approved the payments and started to deposit the money into the plaintiff’s account.
“The said part payment by Ministry of Finance were made on 8th November 2003 and 23rd December 2003 respectively,” read the claim in part.
The company further stated that it was later informed that the Drug Enforcement Commission had gotten hold of its payment file for investigations when it inquired on the balance.
“Since the time files were gotten by the Drug Enforcement Commission, there has not been any response from the Ministry of Finance,” it stated.
Tusola Dealers submitted that on February 25, 2016, the plaintiff wrote to the relevant ministries reminding them to pay the balance.
The company is claiming payment of K910,000 with interest.
It is also seeking damages for breach of contract and costs.
The new head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is rethinking a plan to appoint Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s original proposal sparked an outcry.
He had previously praised Zimbabwe for its commitment to public health.
But Mr Mugabe’s critics say Zimbabwe’s health care system has collapsed under his 30-year regime, with staff often going without pay while medicines are in short supply.
It led Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Doug Coltart to take to Twitter to question how WHO felt about having “a Goodwill Ambassador who destroyed the health sector in his country”.
Other social media users accused the president – who, at 93, has outlived his country’s average life expectancy by more than three decades – of travelling abroad to receive his own medical treatment.
