FOR a long time now councils have been wallowing in serious financial challenges to an extent that they have been keeping their workers without pay for months on end.
Ever since the Government embarked on selling all council houses, life has been harsh to councils and employees who have had to depend on Government for grants to pay salaries and for service provision.
The result is that service provision has deteriorated with many markets and townships having heaps of uncollected garbage while roads which councils should maintain are largely in a deplorable state.
Today Minister of Local Government and Housing Emerine Kabanshi is offering councils some tips on how they can manage without literally relying on the Central Government.
The minister has advised councils that they should consider to venture into agriculture to broaden their income base following a decision by Ndola City Council to acquire two tractors worth K3l9 million from a grant obtained from the National Road Fund Agency (NRFA).
Ms Kabanshi said there is need for councils to venture into other activities such as tree planting and cutting grass once they get facilities such as tractors.
She said, “I would like to urge the councils to venture into agricultural activities. If there are any councils that have farms, let them revive them as this will broaden their income base and also help the country produce food.”
This is good advice because councils are also custodians of land. Councils should not wait for government grants.
If the councils go into agriculture they would not wait for government grants but also earn income for their operations and salaries.
Food production is good production because the councils would be helping the country attain food security while they could even export some of their produce.
The advantage of agriculture is that there is ready market for food with increasing demand from neighbouring countries and agriculture production has got other spin-offs.
These spin-offs can be the creation of industries for agro-processing which will go a long way in helping the creation of industries to help reduce poverty in line with the PF government’s manifesto.
We are not saying the councils should abandon their main role of service provision but they should do this as part-time business to boost their coffers.
If councils have problems with staff, they can even sub-contract managers who can engage staff in agricultural production whilst officials from the councils supervise.
This way councils could regain their lost glory that they had when they used to offer better services unlike the current state of affairs when councils are only offering shoddy services.
This is why we are urging councils countrywide to heed the minister’s wise counsel because this could be a panacea for the current financial quagmire local authorities face.
Zambia National Service is doing a commendable job in food production and the senior command has pledged to double up production in line with the advice from Vice-President Guy Scott.
We are looking forward to seeing councils do some part-time agriculture which can go a long way in boosting their revenues so that they equally offer better services.
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