CHOLERA OUTBREAK IS WAKE UP CALL
ing from Kitwe had been stopped on the way because there was a cholera patient on board.
Mr. Sata’s words though aimed at Tembo are meant for each and every one of us who live in cities and even the small towns and villages. We all ought to take care of our own hygiene, otherwise, the consequences are not only expensive to deal with but can also be fatal for whole communities.
Perhaps the time has come for a radical transformation of the way we run our local government On December 23, 2017, President Edgar Lungu declared whilst visiting Cholera hit areas declared that there should not be any more shanty compounds in the country.
“What we have discovered is that at independence kwalifye maikulile (people were just constructing houses anyhow). And this is the price we are paying………going forward we will start planning settlements.”
There are several critical issues in implementing a hygienic environmen
t in any settled om- munity on earth. Top of the list is the mind of each member of the community. In the animal kingdom, each animal knows that its feces can attract predators, so all animals ensure their droppings are left miles away from where they will spend a night. The predators on the other hand use their feces to mark their territories. It takes a trained mind to observe such critical discipline.
When we look at the current cholera situation, it is not unfair and unjust to say that the major cause is the negative thinking of the majority of our people, especially the youth. They do not mind the condition of the places where they trade and any attempt to control them meets with scorn. They call those who try to correct them as “ba some of us”.
disaster comes there is no “some of us”.
One can only hope that the cholera outbreak has opened up their minds and they will realize that nothing is more important than hygiene as they carry on the struggle for their daily bread as we all do in whatever way we fight for our survival.
Local governance is also very important. President Lungu talked of what the PF government
from previous administrations. Local government to say the least has completely broken down in our country, and to this end, I am not blaming any person and I hope that people will not take offence. But failure to follow and implement Town and Country Planning norms has led to the disaster we are facing today.
I will give one specific example which confirms a disaster created by the Lusaka District Council’s failure to implement the Town and Country Planning Act. In 1993, the council offered plots in the Chalala area. I was offered one of the plots and we were made to pay K693,000.00 (un-rebased). These were service charges meant for the provision of pipe borne water and roads.
The council collected this money from all the applicants but not a single pipe was laid in Chalala. The results is that today, every house in Chalala has a borehole and a soccer way next to each other. The result is that the underground water in Chalala is now contaminated. The people who run the council at that time are to blame. Some of them are now in the opposition and are very quick to blame the PF government for a problem which they created.
If we roll back the clock, I can tell my fellow Zambians that all government institutions put hygiene at the top list of their priorities. There were house-keeping competitions in the barracks and police camps, health inspectors went around the city and ensured each home had a dust bin and refuse was collected once a week by the council. Mine townships were maintained by the companies and you could not find a piece of paper on the streets.
Further back in the colonial days, chiefs toured all villages in their areas to ensure that each house had a toilet and that the surroundings were well kept. The colonial officers also combined poll tax collections with inspections of house-keeping standards in the villages.
The history, the laws and the rules are there for us to map out a more hygienic future for our country. The cholera outbreak is a wake up call. We should not allow laws that guard our health to be compromised.