Kambwili: New State House For What? …It’s Not a Priority Right Now
CHISHIMBA Kambwili has advised Cabinet to reject the recommendation of the parliamentary committee on works and supply suggesting the construction of a new State House.
And works and supply minister Matthew Nkhuwa has revealed that government will spend US$20 million to erect a new State House. The committee last Thursday made a presentation on their tour of State House where they claimed that the structure had deteriorated and needed to be turned into a museum.
PF members of parliament, who are now effectively in charge of parliamentary business following the suspension of 47 UPND members for missing President Edgar Lungu’s state of the nation address on March 17, supported the proposal to have a new State House. Housing and infrastructure minister Ronald Chitotela, in supporting the proposal, said the government expected to start the construction of the new State House in Lusaka in 2018.
Committee chairperson Anthony Mumba told Parliament that the current State House was built more than 80 years ago and was now in a serious state of disrepair. Mumba told the House that the committee was also concerned that government was currently spending huge amounts of money on piece-meal maintenance works that weren’t adding much to improve the state of the building.
Housing and infrastructure Minister Ronald Chitotela later announced that the government was expected to commence construction in 2018.
Addressing journalists at the PF-organised Interactive Forum in Lusaka yesterday, Nkhuwa explained that the current State House had serious cracks.
The first day that I was appointed as minister, I was taken round by the Secretary to Cabinet to look at the state of State House. I come from the construction industry and I understand construction and that State House has got serious cracks. If there was an earthquake, what will happen will be disastrous [because] that thing can just crumble and at the end of the day, we could be held responsible for killing the occupants of that place because it’s our responsibility to make sure that the buildings are in a habitable state,
Nkhuwa said.
“That State House, I think, was built long before independence; it was a governance house and then it was turned into State House; we don’t even have room where we can have functions and so on. Even our Cabinet room is so small that we are just squeezed – even to move it’s a problem. The electrical wires have been in there for a long time and the conduits are rotten. The roof keeps [on] leaking! You patch here and there and you just go on. So, I looked at it and went people from the ministry and they looked at it and we thought the best way is that we send it to the parliamentary committee.”
He emphasised that the matter of erecting a new State House was an urgent one.
“The final report came from the parliamentary committee in charge of works and supply. They recommended that we should build a new State House and therefore, it was passed in Parliament and we should look for land or build or maybe build another State House just there. But it’s something that we must do now; we can’t keep on postponing it because if anything happens, the people of Zambia are going to cry that what are we people doing in the Ministry of Works and Supply by allowing a building like that to collapse on the Head of State or the other occupants, indeed. So, it’s a matter of urgency,” Nkhuwa said.
“We didn’t want to involve the President and if anything, the President was probably hearing it the first time that it came out of Parliament because we never involved him at all [because] we thought we are duty bound to look at it and we made a decision.”
He said the amount of money to be used to build another State House could not be compared to the value of human life.
That State House is a danger to the people that are sitting there and I think that the value of a human being, regardless, is higher than the price we can pay to build another State House. So, it may not look like a priority but if, for some reason, we declare that today that it’s not fit for human habitation, then where is the President going to work from?
Nkhuwa asked.
“It is a risk as it is to have that State House! It’s going to be a modern State House and we are looking in the range of US$20 million, according to the estimates that came from the parliamentary committee in the report. The location; we haven’t come up with the location. [But] we have agreed and it’s been passed it Parliament and so we are going to build. I still feel there is a lot of room in the current State House where we can build another State House and leave that [old one] to be a museum. Even the houses surrounding State House, I don’t think they are impressive to anybody…”
But Kambwili, the Roan PF member of parliament who was recently fired as information minister, said the proposed construction of a new State House was misplaced and must be rejected as there were more pressing needs in the country.
As far as I am concerned, in 2015, we rejected that project because it’s not a priority and I don’t think President Edgar Lungu will accept that kind of thinking,
Kambwili said.
“We have so many things that needs to be attended to other than the new State House, new State House for what? So to me it’s not a priority. I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Cabinet cannot even try to think of such a project.”
He explained that the parliamentary committee could not approve the construction of a new State House but could only recommend to cabinet.
In any case, president Michael Sata rejected it, President Edgar Lungu’s Cabinet rejected it [in December 2015] so I don’t know how it can come back. I am out of the country nursing my wife in the UK and have only read on the internet that Parliament approved it, Parliament can’t approve such a thing but can only recommend,
said Kambwili who, however, did not state if he would have opposed the proposal had he been in attendance at the time of debate.
“What the parliamentary committee can do is to make a recommendation and it’s up to Cabinet to approve…It’s not a priority, we need to diversify the economy; revamp the agriculture sector, but not to build State House.”
On December 14, 2015, 11 months of President Lungu being in office, Cabinet rejected a memorandum of the Ministry of Works and Supply to construct a new State House.
(g) Proposal to build new State House Main Administration Building. Under this Item, Cabinet declined to approve a Ministry of Works and Supply memorandum proposing the construction of a new State House Main Administration Building for use by the Republican President and State House Staff and refurbishment and conversion of the old State House into a Museum. The proposal stated that the current State House main administration building was built in the early 1930s and due to passage of time, the structure has continued to deteriorate posing potential health and safety risks. Further, the building has limited office space for State House staff. Despite this situation, Cabinet decided not to approve the proposal in view of the limited resources and the prevailing economic situation in the country,
stated minutes of the December 14, 2015 Cabinet meeting in part.
Almost two years on, with the country in a worse off economic situation as government continues to struggle to even clear civil servants salaries owing to a depleted Treasury, it is unclear how the parliamentary committee arrived at such a recommendation.
Already, the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has given government a one month ultimatum in which to increase civil servants’ salaries or face serious action as their belts could not be tightened anymore owing to deteriorating economic conditions.
The ZCTU will not remain silent when its members are being subjected to untold hardships economically. We urge all union leaders to ensure that their members get a salary increase before the end of this year. ZCTU will escalate engagements with its affiliates to ensure that workers in this country get a fair deal from their employers. It is unacceptable that government should continue to delay this process when workers in the public service are battling against the rising cost of living and a steady erosion of their buying power. We are saying we cannot delay any further; we can only think of July and not anything beyond July and so we would like to urge the government to be serious with these things,
said ZCTU deputy general secretary Elaston Njovu during a briefing on Friday.
“You can’t have a situation where the cost of power goes up, fuel goes up and we are paying taxes from left, right and centre and we are being told to tighten our belts while others in government are not ready to tighten their belts. So, as workers we are stating categorically that there will be certain actions that our members will take and as a Congress, we are in support of that because enough is enough. Within the provisions of the law, the negotiations should have concluded and in context of extending, maybe you extend once or twice – you can’t keep [on] extending.”