GOVT COMMENDED OVER CHOLERA MOVE
GOVERNMENT has been commended for involving the three wings of defence forces in the cleaning exercise of the Lusaka Central Business District (CBD) to bring sanity in the wake of cholera outbreak.
Lusaka’s Independence Ward 14 councillor George Daka said the cleaning exercise was a good move because the CBD was very dirty and that there was need to bring sanity and order in the city.
He said there was need to also ensure that makeshift stands used by street vendors were removed because they were contributing to making the CBD even dirtier.
In an interview with the Daily Nation, Mr Daka explained that all that the government was doing was for the good of the traders to reduce the traces of cholera which had spread in the district killing 42 people.
The civic leader said he was aware that the exercise had been received with mixed feelings by the traders.
“Some of the traders what to compromise it with life because for them it’s like government was being hard on them,
“As you are aware cholera is a deadly disease when one is affected they die within hours we need to protect our people; you can’t be a leader when there are no people,” he said.
Mr Daka said government was trying to protect the very people who voted them in power and as leaders there was need to make such decisions so that their lives could be protected from the deadly epidemic.
He advised Lusaka traders to allow the three wings of the defence forces to do their job and that once they finished the cleaning exercise the vendors would be communicated too on what would be the next step.
“Let the defence personnel do their job, after they finish we will communicate to traders and we will tell them how we want the things to be done,
“Even those who are trading on the streets with these traces of cholera they cannot be trading without facilities like toilets and we need to see how best we can provide such facilities,” Mr Daka said.
He warned the vendors who were in the habit of cooking and selling foodstuffs on the street to stop.