WE HAVE taken note of the warning by Kitwe City Council (KCC) regarding boarding houses that are overcrowded and lack adequate sanitation facilities. This scenario is certainly not unique to Kitwe – it is the prevailing situation in most urbanised towns, including Lusaka, where demand for higher education far outstrips available facilities, including student accommodation. The demand for accommodation has led to most landlords opening their properties to students. Or put differently, landlords converting their residential homes to business premises. Admittedly, it is good business with students most times not minded to paying whatever is being charged as long as they have somewhere to sleep regardless of the standards of the facilities on offer. But while this may be good business, it has brought about a lot of challenges, often compromising social order and public health. For a start, some of these facilities have no business operating as boarding houses...

Move will give teachers structured grievance process JOHN CHAAMBWA, ESTHER NG’ANDU, CHISHALA MUSONDA Lusaka, Kitwe, Livingstone GOVERNMENT will this month launch a teacher grievance redress mechanism guideline. And Basic Education Teachers Union of Zambia (BETUZ) has implored Government to increase the 2027 national budget to fund the long-delayed upgrades of thousands of teachers. Speaking at the commemoration of World Teachers’ Day, Ministry of Education permanent secretary for administration Noriana Muneku said the guideline, developed with World Bank support, would give teachers a fair, transparent and structured process for having administrative, professional or personal concerns addressed. Ms Muneku said the ministry had also developed a Teacher Professional Development Index, a competency-based tool to support training, mentorship, assessment and career progression. She said the ministry had re-united more than 1,782 couples separated by transfers and deployments, and that Government had reserved 10 per cent of recruitment opportunities for persons with disabilities. “Celebrating...

NKOMBO KACHEMBA Lusaka DATA obtained from the Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI) dashboard indicates that the prevalence of illicit cigarettes in Zambia stands at 12.2 percent, lower than rates recorded in South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Ghana. The TCDI data puts illicit cigarette prevalence at 58 percent in South Africa, 45.4 percent in Ethiopia, 25 percent in Nigeria and 20 percent in Ghana. However, Zambia’s rate is higher than those recorded in Senegal at nine percent, Gambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo at 8.6 percent each, and Kenya at five percent. The findings are based on the TCDI’s 2022 illicit cigarette empty-pack survey, which analysed 118,344 cigarette packs collected from retailers, streets and bins across 25 districts covering all 10 provinces. The survey found that 14,428 packs, representing 12.2 percent of the sample, were classified as illicit based on criteria including the absence of a Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA)...

HH urges chiefs to sensitise subjects on food security amid El Niño-induced drought fears CATHERINE BWALYA, MATHEWS MALAZIKA Monze, Lusaka PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema has urged traditional leaders to sensitise their subjects to retain enough maize for household consumption amid warnings of an impending El Niño-induced drought. Speaking during the 2026 Samu Lya Moomba traditional ceremony in Bweengwa, Monze, President Hichilema assured the nation that Government will ensure that no one dies of hunger, but urged households to take responsibility by preserving adequate food stocks. “All the traditional leaders, all of us, can we inform our people to retain as much maize as possible for your own family consumption because we have a drought and don’t say we were not told,” he said. “Please keep as much maize so that we can protect our children from going hungry,” the President said. He said the drought warning should not be taken lightly...