By Joel Phiri

Mzimba, August 19, mana: A cross section of business people in Mzimba have protested M’mbelwa District Council’s plans to construct a new bus depot at the old bus depot premises.

The people were speaking on Friday during a consultation meeting the council held to brief them on plans to construct a new depot to replace the old one.

Principal Environmental Officer for the council, James Pelani said the bus depot is now under M’mbelwa Council having its ownership transferred from National Bus Company hence plans to erect a new structure.

However, one of the business people operating a restaurant in the depot, Cecilia Mumba said demolishing the old depot will rob them of their livelihood.

“We have families we support from the businesses we operate from here and if you demolish this depot it will render us without business premises to operate from and our dependants will be affected adversely,” said Mumba.

Mumba proposed construction of new depot at a new place to avoid inconveniences.  

Chairperson of the committee that runs businesses in the bus depot, Kaingani Chiwambo concurred with Mumba saying the new bus depot should be built elsewhere.

“We use this depot as our business premises. So much as we welcome plans of a new depot, we want it constructed elsewhere like at the abandoned airport,” Chiwambo said.

Pelani said as council they will go back to the drawing board to see how the issue should be tackled.

He said the plans that the councillors and Members of Parliament passed were that the new depot should be constructed at the same old depot premises.

The Governance to Enable Service Delivery (GESD) funded bus depot project is one of the 11 flagship projects earmarked to be constructed in the 2023/2024 financial year.