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By NATION REPORTER

UNLESS expressly mitigated, a countrywide strike by medical doctors, which has been looming for days is likely to start today, after government decided to be adamant by refusing to include doctors on the 10.5 percent salary increase awarded to civil servants across the board.

Hospitals and other medical facilities across the country shall be paralysed, without medical doctors who have resolved to withdraw their labour after government accused them of arm-twisting the state by demanding their inclusion on the 10.5 percent salary increase.

Doctors down tools

Yesterday, the medical doctors across the country unanimously decided to go ahead with their protest today over the 10.5 percent salary increment which was awarded to all civil servants except the medical doctors because government claims their category was in a class of middle management.

Zambia Medical Association (ZMA) general secretary Dr Kaumba Tolopu has disclosed that doctors met on Monday evening and a decision was made that they should go ahead with their protest since government had remained mute over their concerns despite engaging them on various occasions.

Dr Tolopu said the doctors had no option but to go ahead with the planned protest today since government had decided to ignore their plea and that all civil avenues had failed to yield the desired results.

“The doctors met and they have actually been told that the protest is still on since government has decided to be adamant about this serious matter. Government has decided to remain adamant and is acusing the doctors of arm-twisting the State. We have therefore decided to withdraw our labour since civil discussions have collapsed,” Dr Tolopu said.

The doctors have demanded that government gives them the 10.5 percent increment which was given to civil servants as they were omitted since they are deemed to be in management.

But former defence minister Dr George Mpombo said that there was a revolt at the Ministry of Health and that it was not normal for one of the most important ministries to be facing such perennial and calamitous problems without any step being taken to correct the situation.

Dr Mpombo said Ministry of Health had been a seething cauldron of frustration and disenchantment among doctors for the most part of the UPND administration which had started with a continuous critical shortage of medicines and other medical supplies.

Dr Mpombo said the preamble to the problems in the Ministry of Health was cutting of the supply chain of medicines and other medical supplies by the Sylvia Masebo, the Minister of Health without having a back-up plan.

He stated that the cut in the supply chain had resulted into an immediate shortage of drugs in hospitals across the country, stating that the medical staff had become the most demotivated of the civil servants under Ms Masebo in many decades.

Dr Mpombo called on government not to be arrogant and ensure that they dealt with the matter before it exploded in their faces because the results would be disastrous.

 A 42-year-old man of Ndola’s Sakania area has been arrested for stealing 22 cobs of maize in Kamalasha area of Sakania. Boniface Chisenga is believed to have stolen the maize and then confessed to selling it to residents in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It is believed that it is not the first […]

 ZAMBIA Tourism Agency (ZTA) Promotion Manager Chibesa Kambalakoko says the country stands to benefit immensely from taking part in the Meetings Africa summit staged in South Africa. Over 10 Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) suppliers from Zambia are taking part in the 17th edition of Meetings Africa currently going on in South Africa. These […]

By NATION REPORTER
EADER of the Opposition in Parliament Brian Mundubile says the government should stop transferring Directors at the Auditor General’s Office to Cabinet Office as this will compromise the Auditor General’s report.
Mr Mundubile who is also a PF presidential candidate said a compromised report, would make it difficult for Members of Parliament to authenticate it during Parliamentary sittings, adding that this was the first Report under the UPND administration.
He said the transfers brought the number to 400 Directors and Deputy Directors from various ministries that would be drawing free salaries while in holding positions, without doing any work.
Mr Mundubile said the constitution provided for safeguards and watchdog bodies to discipline Government by watching all activities.
He said the Auditor General was one such office which basically looked at how Government was carrying on the stewardship that was entrusted on them by the people.
“They express an opinion after looking through the books of accounts of Government,” he said.
Mr Mundubile said that this is a ploy to destabilise the Auditor General’s Office at a critical time when there was an active audit.
“As parliamentarians, we are concerned because the Auditor General’s Report forms part of our functions in providing oversight to Government,” he said.
He said the work of parliament would be adversely affected if the Audit Report was not credible. “We know that this is the first audit that will be carried out covering the period under the UPND administration. We feel that this is what has caused panic UPND friends to ensure that they produce a clean report. But as Parliamentarians that have been following events as they unfold, we have minimum expectations,” he said.
He also said, stakeholders expect the Auditor General’s Report to cover the cancelation of hunting licenses, procurement of fertiliser at Fifty Million Dollars when the market price was Thirty Five Million Dollars and the One Hundred Million Dollar contract under Ministry of Health, among others.
“Even if Government tries to destabilize the Office, we will make specific demands to the Auditor General and we will find it very difficult to defend a document that is watered down. What is important now is that let them wait for the Audit Report and use it as a mirror to reflect on how UPND has managed the Affairs of the country.
There have been concerns regarding the governance style of the UPND Government,” he said. Mr Mundubile said a credible audit report would serve as a guide to the UPND Administration going forward so that they restrain themselves from doing certain things and govern the country in the manner that was expected.
“We are concerned that Senior Auditors with experience spanning over 28 years victimised by throwing them to Cabinet Office in their usual style, bringing the number to 400 directors and deputy directors sitting at Cabinet Office and drawing salaries and President Hakainde Hichilema should say he is prudent in managing public resources? I think as a country we ought to get serious,” he said.

 A 28-year-old man of Lusaka has been detained in police custody for attempting to sexually abuse a 15-year-old girl who was on her way to school. The victim , a grade eight pupil at a named school, is said to have been dragged by Charles Ngonga into a maize field where he attempted to have […]

The statistics come to be one in 33 people affected by the condition, which is more common than the one in 40 people estimate, earlier believed to be true.

By NATION REPORTER

GOVERNMENT has scaled down structure of the Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriage way road construction project which was originally expected to cost around US$2 billion with all the amenities including the creation of Townships, Hotels and other highway economic infrastructures.

Government yesterday signed a Public Private Partnership (PPP) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Avic International for the construction of the Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriage Way at a cost of US$577 million.

The initial structure of the Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriage Way had included other economic infrastructure such as Satelite Cities, three toll Plazas along the route, Road Development Agency (RDA) offices, a bypass road from Kapiri Mposhi to avoid passing through the central business district, a bridge across the Mulungushi River and three service stations along the project road as well as the construction of the Luanshya/ Masangano Bridge among others.

The MoU signed yesterday is without the above mentioned additional economic infrastructure which has seen the reduction of the total cost of the Lusaka-Ndola Dual Carriage Way to no more than US$577 million.

Infrastructure Minister Charles Milupi claimed yesterday that had the Patriotic Front continued in government after the 2021 general elections, government was going to lose more than US$2 billion in the project because according to him, it was largely overpriced.

He said the total cost of construction of the 327 Km dual carriage way under the PPP project would be US$577 million.

Mr Milupi said this during the signing ceremony for the Lusaka-Ndola dual carriageway in Ndola yesterday.

And Minister of Finance and National planning, Situmbeko Musokotwane has said for the first time since independence, the country was witnessing the construction of a dual carriage way of such a magnitude at a true value of the cost.

Dr. Musokotwane said a few years ago, there was an attempt by the previous government to construct the same road but they did not succeed as it was overpriced.

He said the government did not proceed with the project because of the public uproar because the country was borrowing huge sums of money for the construction of the road.

“They wanted to borrow more than $1.2 billion for the construction of the road which was overpriced,” he said.

Dr. Musokotwane said under the PPP project the government was not going to spend not even a single penny or borrow any money for the construction of this most important economical road.

He said he was aware that the of progress would try to throw mud on the progress made by using PPP by purporting that the government would have built the roads themselves rather than using local institutions.

Dr. Musokotwane said the government was not going to lose revenue through this partnership because it would be key participants in the revenues that would be collected from the roads.

He said critics were saying that this was not a PPP project because the government was getting financing from local intuitions like NAPSA but the local institution was not financing the whole project.

Dr. Musokotwane said it was better for the money to come from inside so that when the money was being paid back everything would remain in the country.

“The interest that will be earned by NAPSA would be in turn earned by the owners of NAPSA who are the people of Zambia,” he said.

He also said the concession period of the project was 25 years split in two, three years of construction and 22 years of operations and maintenance. 

Dr. Musokotwane said as the contractor has already indicated that the construction of the road would take approximately 36 months, the benefits of this road would spur development not only in this country but the southern region as a whole.

“For the first time, we showed that the more vapers used e-cigarettes, and the longer they used them, the more DNA damage occurred in their oral cells,” study author Ahmad Besaratinia and his colleagues at Keck School of Medicine of USC, said.

By NATION REPORTER

IT is going to be risky for government to consider bringing back Vedanta to run Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) because rumours are swelling that the firm may be having financial challenges, Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP) president Sean Tembo has said.

Mr Tembo said that it was going to be suicide if government allowed Vedanta to return because the firm was facing a number of challenges and looking at the way it conducted itself the same would happen.

“My plea is that government should not entertain the return of Vedanta because history is there for us to see, contractors were not paid plus other problems that were faced during its run at KCM,” he said.

Meanwhile, Anil Agarwal’s once-London-listed Vedanta Resources Limited has a pile of debt, including a $1 billion bond due January.

However, Vedanta Resources did manage to shed its net-debt burden from almost $10 billion in March last year to a little under $8 billion. With the listed unit declaring a dividend last month, its parent and majority shareholder is “highly likely” to meet its obligations until September 2023, according to S&P Global Inc. So far so good. But it was when Agarwal tried to secure the finances for $1.5 billion in loan and bond repayments between September this year and January 2024 that he hit a roadblock. 

What was supposed to be a quick dash to the ATM has become an uncertain enough adventure for Vedanta Resources bondholders to drive the price of the August 2024 note below 70 cents on the dollar. The next few weeks will be crucial for fundraising. If it fails, the issuer’s B- credit rating, already deep in the junk-bond category, could come under pressure, S&P said this month. Adani’s net debt pile of $24 billion may be three times as large as Agarwal’s, but his bonds are still rated at the lowest rung of investment grade. 

What happened to get everyone worried was this: Hindustan Zinc Ltd., which Agarwal had started buying from the Indian government two decades ago in a privatization deal, has a cash pile, albeit much smaller than before, of $2 billion. Plus, the miner garners between $300 million and $600 million Ebitda (1) every quarter. So Vedanta Ltd., which now owns 65% of the firm, decided in January to offload THL Zinc Ltd. Mauritius to Hindustan Zinc. That cash deal, representing mining interests in South Africa and Namibia, was valued at roughly $3 billion in phases over 18 months. Since Vedanta Ltd. is 70% owned by Vedanta Resources, it would have taken care of the latter’s liquidity needs.

Except there was one problem. New Delhi, which still owns about 30% of Hindustan Zinc, balked at the transaction. 

“We would urge the company to explore other cashless methods for acquisition of these assets,” the Indian government said in a Feb. 17 letter, threatening to explore legal avenues if Hindustan Zinc still decided to go ahead with the purchase.

This presents two problems for the mining magnate. First, unless China’s economic revival turns things around, the post-pandemic era of supernormal commodity profits could be over. If Agarwal can’t take Hindustan Zinc’s cash all the way up to his privately held Vedanta Resources, his ability to pay down debt may be impaired, forcing him to borrow more. But with the Fed giving no indication that it’s done raising rates and existing Vedanta Resources bonds dropping in value, he might struggle to raise fresh money at a reasonable cost.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday his agency believes the Covid-19 pandemic was “most likely” caused by an incident in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.