Councillor bemoans poor libraries’ funding

THE Lusaka City Council (LCC) budget for 2018/2020 has not allocated adequate funds towards maintenance of libraries and community centres.

In an interview with the Daily Nation, Munkolo ward 12 councillor Bupe Mulenga said the Libraries and community centres were vital to women and youths as they played a key role the communities.

Ms Mulenga said the community centres could be used to generate revenue for the council through the hiring out of venues for activities such as weddings, kitchen parties and school activities, among other social activities. Ms Mulenga said if community centres in the wards remained undeveloped and dilapidated, the women and youths would not progress and remain vulnerable.

She said there was need to review in the next budget to ensure that community centres and libraries were allocated enough funds if they were continue being of benefit to the community.

Ms Mulenga said there was need to ensure that the local authority puts up infrastructure such as libraries in all the wards that did not have.

Ms Mulenga said in Linda compound there was no library for the youths and that this had contributed to youths engaging in negative vices.

She said the libraries needed to have books, computers including W-Fi because the world was charging therefore, school-going children and youths should learn Information Communication Technology (IT).

“I am not very happy that not more funds have been allocated for the maintenance of our libraries and community centres yet community centres could be used to generate income through hiring out for different activities.

“And in Linda compound there are no libraries and children are facing challenges when it comes to studying,” said Ms Mulenga.

However, Ms Mulenga was happy that the budget for waste management had been increased to effectively address the issue of uncollected garbage in the wards.