Mast on Saturday, January 11, 2020
3
By Melony Chisanga
THERE is need to localise the
manufacturing of stock feed to
promote cheap fish farming in
Luapula Province, says
Chifunabuli member of
parliament Mecha Ponde.
And Ponde says people must
be educated on the dangers of
using unconventional means of
fish harvesting.
In an interview, Ponde, who
is also chairperson of the
Parliamentary Committee on
Agriculture, said Luapula
remains a viable hub to house
aquaculture.
He said the availability of
major ingredient of
MMD the only party with experience to solve
Zambia’s economic problems - Chibanga
By Christopher Miti
AN MMD member Julius
Chibanga says the former
ruling party is the only
political party capable of
solving Zambia’s economic
problems that include debt
because of its vast experience.
Addressing MMD members
in Katete recently, Chibanga,
who is a national executive
committee member in the
Raphael Nakacinda group,
said MMD had experience
because it was in government
before.
“Let me give you an
example, when an expectant
mother goes to the hospital
and the time has come to give
birth at St Francis Mission
Hospital. When you reach
there, there is a midwife who
came yesterday and a midwife
who has worked for 20 years,
and you are asked which
midwife you want to attend to
you; which one would you
choose?” he asked.
Chibanga said the problem
with Zambians was that they
always want to experiment.
“The problems that we have
now of money and debt, who
knows how to sort out these
problems? We had debt or did
we leave such debt? Who
sorted out the debt? Now you
want to put a new party,
maybe it’s UPND, Kalaba or
Kambwili, how will they know
Understanding climate change and
Energy in light of current load shedding
THE year 2019 ended in
not-much style; not so much
electricity-driven celebra-
tory activities for obvious
reasons, load shedding for
the most part as well as not
very deep pockets at that!
As per tradition, year-end
comes with it many
“to-leave-in-the past” issues
as well as a readiness to
making those “no-sooner-
made-than-broken” New
Year resolutions! The one
resolution we should all
make this year, 2020, is to
become an actively
participating earth inhabitant
and to start positively
contributing to the solutions
we need to heal mother
earth and sustainably
preserving it for future
generations.
Now, let’s get back to the
issue of load shedding and
not raining on X-mas day;
some may attribute this to
many issues with the most
current one being climate
change. Please, do stay
focused now - we are talking
about climate change and
energy in light of the
current load shedding.
Before I proceed to talk
more about climate change
and energy, let me first start
Chifunabuli MP calls for localised manufacturing of fish stockfeed
fish-farming stock feed, soya
beans and maize, was a plus to
make the business of growing
fish cheaper.
Last year, Ministry of
Fisheries and Livestock with
the African Development
Fund rolled out the Zambia
Aquaculture Enterprise
Development Project
(ZAEDP) in the 10 provinces
of Zambia that aimed at
boosting and enhancing the
aquaculture industry as a
viable and inclusive business
opportunity to improve
people’s livelihoods.
how to solve the debt? I am a
national trustee, so I want to
counsel you nicely! We need
to reflect seriously, who do we
need to take us out of these
problems? We need to look at
other countries on how they
take out problems,” he said.
Chibanga said if MMD
made mistakes, people took
them out of power and during
this period, it was learning.
“Where did we make
mistakes, so the natural thing
you can do is to bring us back
to come and remove those
mistakes. To bring new
political parties will not be
okay for example some parties
are saying for the economy to
move, your children of the
same sex to marry each other,
is that what you want? All we
need is the experience and
MMD has the experience. The
way you have held yourself
together continue doing that,
you will be our beacon, you
will be our light so that
whenever we go, we’ll tell you
‘can you preserve MMD like
the people of Katete have
preserved MMD,” he said.
Chibanga urged MMD
members to remain steadfast
and not to be cheated.
Chairperson for agriculture
Chishala Chilufya said he was
impressed that Katete had
remained a stronghold for
MMD. Chilufya said MMD
members in Katete could not
by expounding on what load
shedding is in this first
article.
Lets talk about load
shedding….
Basically, what we have all
come to infamously know as
load shedding is a form of
load reduction and is
obtained by disconnecting
load at selected points on
the transmission or
distribution system. This is in
contrast to load curtailment
which is where load
reduction is obtained from
customers who are able to
reduce demand on instruc-
tion or pre-agreement (sort
of a power conservation
programme such as was
effected by ZESCO
sometime back when they
asked mining loads to
reduce by an agreed factor).
There are several reasons
for effecting load reduction,
among these being:
• Primary energy
constraint (shortage of
water, diesel, etc.)
• Generation plant
performance (low energy
availability due to high
unplanned/planned plant
unavailability due to
maintenance schedules)
• Infrastructure
The ministry appointed
Citizen Economic
Empowerment Commission
(CEEC) as the implementing
partner of the Aquaculture
Seed Fund component of the
project.
“There are certain things
which we need to put in place.
When you are doing aquacul-
ture, you need also to start
looking at localising manufac-
turing of stock feed. We
cannot be getting stock feed
from Lusaka or from Ndola, it
becomes expensive. What are
the major ingredients of stock
be swayed by any political
party.
The meeting was convened
by Raphael Nakacinda and
was attended by several MMD
members in Katete.
Dundumwezi residents appeal for NRCs
By Chambwa Moonga
in Dundumwezi
DUNDUMWEZI residents
are “kindly” asking the
government to render any
help that will ease their mode
of collecting national
registration cards.
About seven residents
spoken to by The Mast on
damage (technical failure,
sabotage, natural phenom-
ena including solar storms)
• Industrial/ social
unrest (disruption to utility
operations)
• Inadequate
generation capacity due to
adherence to recommended
generation regime
• Demand increase
outstrips available genera-
tion capacity
• Post-blackout
recovery
So, in a nutshell, we could
say that when we experi-
ence load shedding, as we
are currently experiencing in
Zambia, one or more of
these reasons given above
could well cause it. As such,
to remedy the situation, it
calls for solutions that
address all causes. In this
instance, we have shortage
of water or a rationing of
water as a primary energy
source/ prime mover for the
turbines at the hydropower
generating plants as one
cause as well as an aging
fleet and grid that is
inadvertently creating a
generation deficit and power
evacuation constraint/
bottleneck.
Notwithstanding the
feed? It is Soya bean and
maize. Basically we are
moving maize and soya bean
and go and make feed in
Lusaka and then bring it back
here. It becomes too costly.
You can’t run small-scale
enterprises in that way. All
you need to do is to localise
manufacturing,” Ponde said.
He said Chifunabuli
Constituency with large water
bodies that had remained
underutilised was viable for
aquaculture.
“We have opportunities in
Chifunabuli, we have three
solar harmer mills, and all we
need is to provide an extension
so that within that business,
we can also have a line to
manufacture feed. That way
we will promote the industry
because the small-scale fish
producers will be able to
afford the feed locally and the
growth rate will be very high
unlike using the locally
available material to feed the
fish,” Ponde said.
Wednesday in Dundumwezi
Constituency, Kalomo district,
‘cried’ that the government
must help them to be issued
with national registration cards
(NRCs).
In the August 11, 2016
general elections, Dundumwezi
residents famed themselves
after only 252, out of thousands
voted for President Edgar
cause for load shedding, load
shedding isn’t cool at all!
AFDB financial statement
recently stated that
manufacturing sector in
Africa loses 56 days a year
in productivity due to
power outages; power
outages cost Africa 2-4% of
GDP annually; and that is
only when we look at it
from a macroeconomic and
financial perspective. From a
microeconomic perspective,
SMME’s that contribute the
most to GDP and are the
biggest employer are the
ones suffering the brunt of it
the most. From a social
perspective, it is deeply
inconveniencing and
demoralising. With Energy
being at the centre of the
Economic - ENERGY
- SocioPolitical nexus, one
cannot even start to
over-emphasise the
importance that energy
plays. And that is not just
energy for the sake of
energy; it is energy that is
available, affordable and
reliable (basically ensuring
energy security).
Okay, enough said on load
shedding and its plausible
causes and quite visible
ramifications. In the next
He said there was need to
promote coordination with
other line ministries that play
supporting roles in fish
farming.
Ponde said the cluster
concept must be developed
among different ministries to
help transform people’s
mentalities of using mosquito
nets for fish harvesting.
“Basically what we need is
to promote coordination within
the Ministry of Fisheries and
Livestock, Ministry of
Commerce, where the solar
harmer mill are under and also
the Ministry of Ariculture
because those are the people
who are interfacing with the
different types of farmers,” he
said.
He said the Ministry of
Health must get involved in
fish farming because they are
responsible for distribution of
mosquito nets which were
used for catching fish in a
unconventional way.
“We cannot restock if we
Lungu.
Amplifying the residents’
voice, Laurent Hanongo, who
is senior headman Womba
within Chikanta chiefdom,
reiterated that there was a
serious problem because:
“many children in the villages
which are under me don’t have
NRCs.”
“In most cases, even some
Let’s talk S.E.E
(Sustainability,
Energy, Environment)
By Eng. Chisakula
Kaputu
article we shall talk about
climate change.
The author is an
energy expert with
over 25 years of
experience (Industrial
Mining, Academia,
Power Infrastructure/
ESI, Electrical consul-
tancy and energy
advisory &
consultancy).
cannot change people’s
mindset. The Ministry of
Health has been distributing
large numbers of mosquito
nets. And those are the
mosquito nets that people are
using in the area to catch fish
from the rivers. And that is
how we have depleted most
the fish resources. So we need
to work on that, we need to
develop cluster concept under
the national development
plan,” said Ponde.
“We need to have high
quality fingering and we need
to streamline the transportation
of such fingering because
farmers are in faraway
places…and we need establish
critical mass of farmers not
just two or three farmers and
to say we are promoting fish
farming, no. What we need is
to establish a critical mass
such that even the market will
not be difficult, because we
have to aggregate the supply
from all these different
people.”
adults don’t have NRCs. When
an election comes, many people
won’t vote because they don’t
have NRCs. People are
supposed to travel to Kalomo
town to go and get NRCs but
many families are financially
struggling; they can’t find
transport means for their
children to go to Kalomo
town,” Hanongo complained.
He also explained that
people in his villages could not
even wait for the mobile
registration exercise for NRCs
to start because: “that one is so
selective.”
“They will come here and
say ‘we are just issuing 100
NRCs at this particular polling
station.’ But you will find that
people who are in need of
NRCs at that polling station are
between 500 to 1,000. So, how
do you issue only 100? Can
you imagine that kind of
thinking!” Hanongo said.
The traditional leader
pointed out that those without
NRCs, from seven villages
under him, had been quantified.
“As I speak to you, we
collected all the names of
people without NRCs in the
seven villages which fall under
my jurisdiction. They are 3,
892. These people are residents
of Womba, Saasa,
Lyangunduma, Luumuno,
Moono, Hamiyanze and
Choongo villages,” he said.
“We are extremely
concerned at how we can
transport all these people to go
to Kalomo town for them to be
issued with NRCs.”
Hanongo added that what
was complicating the situation,
in terms of transport costs to
Kalomo town, was that almost
all households in Dundumwezi
were ravaged by hunger.
“People are looking for
money to buy rationed amounts
of mealie meal, to buy fertiliser
and also to pay school fees next
week,” noted Hanongo.
“So, it’s very difficult to
raise transport money for a
child who wants to go and have
an NRC. We are asking the
government to kindly help us in
any way.”