LCC accused
…abetting illegal activities
LUSAKA City Council is toothless for allowing foreign-owned night clubs to continue operating even after minors were rounded up from inside their premises in uncompromising activities during a police raid last week.
New Congress Party (NCP) leader Pastor Peter Chanda has condemned the local authority for having allowed these bars to open without punishing the owners for contributing to the delinquent behaviour of minors.
He accused the city authorities of contributing to delinquency among the teenagers by allowing illegal activities to not only continue but flourish.
A Daily Nation survey of Lusaka’s Florida Street also known as “Devil Street” showed that the bars and night clubs where more than 50 minors were nabbed in illicit activities, found all establishments working and it was business as usual.
Foreign-owned night clubs are back in business after closing briefly following a combined raid by police and Lusaka City Council in which girls as young as 11 years were found having sex in the back rooms.
A combined team of Zambia Police and Lusaka City Council, accompanied by Matero Ward 23 councillor Annie Chinyanta at night swooped on Florida Street popularly known in Lusaka’s Emmasdale area and arrested over 50 minors who were found at bars owned by foreigners.
Majority of the minors, some of them as young as eleven years old and indecently dressed were picked from East Life bar (owned by a Rwandese national) and Motherland Bar.
But a spot check on the bars by the Daily Nation at the weekend found that the bars were in full operation with kids patronising them.
Pastor Chanda expressed sadness that the local authority has allowed the bars to open without punishing the owners and putting up measures to ensure bar owners were not allowing juveniles.
“We are really disappointed by Lusaka City Council that they have allowed these bars to open without punishing the owners. The owner of these bars should have been punished accordingly and their licences revoked.
“As New Congress Party, we would love to see the local authority and bar owners put up stringent measures in ensuring that juveniles are not allowed in bars,” Pastor Chanda has said.
He said his party wanted to see sanity in the country, adding that the local authority should be proactive in closing down bars that were breaking laws with impunity.