MP FUMES OVER KARIBA ISLAND RELOCATION
beenRESIDENTS’ By BENNIE MUNDANDO HUNDREDS of occupants of islands on Kariba Dam in Sinazongwe have removed from their homes and brought to the mainland to enable them access social amenities such as schools and health services.
The residents, who have stayed there for almost their entire lives without schools, health posts, and other social amenities, have finally been relocated to the mainland by Government to allow their children to go to school and for the whole population to have access to various services they needed.
The marines rounded up everyone from the islands this week, asked them to pack their things and vacate the area as their stay there impinged on their access to basic needs as their only preoccupation was fishing.
But this has infuriated the Member of Parliament Gift Sialubalo who has maintained that he had no problem with Government’s intervention to let children go to school and the entire population have access to various services but that the timing was wrong and had created more misery among the people.
“There is no justification as to why children must not go to school and be prevented from accessing health services and I fully support this intervention by Government but I am against the timing and the manner in which the people have been chased. You cannot chase people from their homes in the middle of the rain season as if they are animals and worse off, you don’t even provide an alternative place to which they can go. “The people who have been chased from the islands and at gun point have stayed there for all these years and have no alternative place to go to. Why are we being so reckless to these people? Why are we punishing them in this way?
“These are Zambians and not foreigners. The best Government should have done is to give them time and a deadline to look for an alternative place to move to. Let us have a heart for the people,” Mr. Sialubalo complained.
He chided Government for banning fishing on Lake Kariba on the pretext that there was cholera when in fact no single case of the disease had been recorded in the area, thereby leaving over 4,000 fishermen stranded and without any source of income to feed their families.
“The justification for banning fishing on Lake Kariba was that a cholera case was recorded in Shibuyunji but is Shibuyunji near Lake Kariba? That is Kafue River. No cholera case was recorded around Lake Kariba and I see no reason why Government must extend the ban to that water body.
“Secondly, I expect those who advise Government to possess basic information before arriving at certain conclusions. Since Lake Kariba was constructed, there has been no fish ban because among the conditions spelt out was that the locals, who had sacrificed their fertile soils to pave way for the dam, would be given exclusive fishing rights because they have no land for farming. How does Government expect these people to survive during the two-month ban it has effected? This is not fair,” he complained.