By Wanangwa Tembo

Kasungu, April 20, Mana: Dickson Kadzimete has stayed in Malenga Village, Sub-Traditional Authority (STA) Chambwe in Kasungu district since he was born, 53 years ago.

He says he has many times been a witness to horrific and shameful incidents that have been happening at Kasikizi river as people tried to cross the notorious stream to access social services on the other side at Mtunthama trading centre.

“This stream has caused a lot of troubles for all the communities on its western side because they couldn’t cross it to go Mtunthama where they access most of the social services.

“Our communities here are so much dependent on Mtunthama because that is where we have secondary schools, hospitals, banks and market for our produce. But for a long time, it hasn’t been easy to get there owing to lack of a bridge at Kasikizi river, making life miserable for us,” he says.

Kadzimete recalls incidents where motorcycles ferrying patients and merchandise used to fall into the stream endangering the safety of both passengers and the motorcyclists.  

“It’s a place where people have lost their property and lives. During rainy season, it almost meant that we were cut off from essential life sustaining goods and services.

“Oxcarts carrying good or patients could not cross this river. Equally, learners could not access school on the other side. We needed a bridge,” he says.

Group Village Headman Nthumbo says Kasikizi crossing point was a place where women could lose their dignity as they sought help to cross the stream.

He says: “There used to be a team of young men and boys assisting people to cross. So think of women, some of them pregnant, being carried by boys who took advantage of their desperation to touch them in areas that showed no dignity.

“On the other hand, vehicles carrying supplies such as fertiliser, relief items and sometimes funerals could not get through. So in a way, we were on the losing end.”

Nthumbo says the river’s wide bed made it difficult for the communities to construct even a monkey bridge stressing that the area needed real engineering works.

Geopolitically, Kasikizi river, a tributary of Bua river, is itself the boundary separating Kasungu East Constituency and Kasungu South East Constituency and also demarcates Traditional Authority Chilowamatambe and STA Chambwe.

This time, GVH Nthumbo and his constituents are a happy people following the completion of a K73 million bridge on the stream.

Funded through Governance to Enable Service Delivery (Gesd), Kasikizi bridge has earned praise for changing the lives of the people of Nthumbo community and the surrounding areas who say they have now forgotten the despair and death that were personified in flagrant waters of Kasikizi river.

“You know this is a farming community. When we need fertiliser, the shops are at Mtunthama. When we need fuel, iron sheets, cement, and other essentials, we travel to Mtunthama. So the construction of this bridge has taken away our frustrations.

“Just for instance, we are constructing a school block at Chimwayi Primary School and tracks carrying cement, iron sheets and other items are passing with ease. We are very thankful to government for considering this community with the bridge project,” Nthumbo says.

He says the communities were heavily involved at all stages of the project, a development he says ensured that the structure be of quality standards.

Inspecting the bridge recently, Chairperson for the Parliamentary Budget and Finance Committee, Gladys Ganda, said strict adherence to projects implementation and spending guidelines is key to ensuring that taxpayers get the value for their money in projects being implemented in councils.

She said: "Ours is a fact finding mission as per our mandate to carry out oversight roles on institutions that operate on taxpayers’ money. We want to see value for the money that government invested in councils.

“Out there, people have a view that Members of Parliament abuse some funds like Constituency Development Fund. So we want to follow up on what is on the ground and also appreciate levels of adherence to implementation guidelines.”

While expressing some reservations with cost of the bridge, Ganda expressed satisfaction with most of the development projects that are taking place under Kasungu District Council stating that they are being implemented in accordance with the prescribed guidelines and the required set of standards.

She said the good relationship that is there between the council secretariat and Members of Parliament as well as the involvement of the community from project identification up to implementation phase, have made Kasungu deliver quality structures, including bridges.

District Commissioner for Kasungu, James Kanyangalazi acknowledged that the cost of the bridge was on the higher side but clarified that it was due to the project’s abandonment by the initial contractor.

“The initial contractor failed to complete the bridge so we did a retendering process. And as the processes were being undertaken, the currency was devalued by 44 percent and in the end the project costs had to be adjusted,” he said.

Kanyangalazi said delayed funding and the devaluation of the currency have affected the implementation of some projects not only in terms of costs but also completion time.

“When funding is delayed, work plans and budgets are somehow affected and this affects the implementation of the projects,” he said.

He however assured Kasungu residents that the council will always strive to deliver quality projects within planned costs and timeframes.

Launched in April 2021, Gesd is a five-year performance based project financed by the World Bank to the tune of $100 million and is facilitated by the Ministry of Finance and the National Local Government Finance Committee.

The project is expected to assist in ensuring strict adherence of desired standards of public service delivery by all the 28 district councils for citizens such as those of GVH Nthumbo to appreciate the positive impacts of the nation’s decentralization drive.