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From: Ouko joachim omolo
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste in images
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2013
The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste take this opportunity to be in solidarity and prayers with our pals from Zambia following the death of 53 people killed in one of the worst traffic crashes in the nation in recent history according to officials.
The news just reaching The News Dispatch with Omolo Beste says that a bus operated by Zambia’s postal service carrying passengers toward its capital Lusaka smashed into a semi-truck and another car Thursday, killing at least 53 people. The crash happened Thursday morning near the town of Chifamba, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Lusaka according to police spokeswoman Elizabeth Kanjela.
Kennedy Sakeni, Zambia’s information minister, said at least 53 people died in the crash, while another 22 had been taken to local hospitals. A sport utility vehicle also was involved in the crash, he said.
Zambia Postal Services runs the bus routes throughout the country, carrying passengers and mail through the nation of 13 million people in southern Africa.
The crash Thursday represented one of the worst for Zambia in recent years. In April 2005, a truck packed with high school students skidded off a mountain road in northern Zambia, killing at least 38 and seriously injuring another 50.
Fr Joachim Omolo Ouko, AJ
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Real change must come from ordinary people who refuse to be taken hostage by the weapons of politicians in the face of inequality, racism and oppression, but march together towards a clear and unambiguous goal.
-Anne Montgomery, RSCJ UN Disarmament Conference, 2002
A fight well done, Congratulation King Cobra Michael Sata.
Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com
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Zambia's 'King Cobra' Sata wins elctions
Zambia's 'King Cobra" Michael Sata elected President
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsXPIT6yoQ8
Uploaded by comapass1 on Sep 23, 2011
Zambian opposition leader Michael Sata, scored an upset presidential election victory on Friday which may have negative results in foreign companies' view of Africa's biggest copper producer as a sound investment destination.
Zambia's opposition leader Sata wins elections
By Chris Mfula | Reuters – Thu, Sep 22, 2011
LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia's opposition leader Michael Sata was declared the winner of the country's presidential elections on Friday, defeating incumbent Rupiah Banda in polls marred by public violence in Africa's biggest copper producer.
Zambia's Chief Justice Ernest Sakala declared Sata the winner after he received 1,150,045 votes compared to Banda's 961,796 with 95.3 percent of constituencies counted.
(Reporting by Chris Mfula; Editing by Marius Bosch)
Zambia picks its next president in tight vote
AFP – Mon, Sep 19, 2011
About 5.2 million registered Zambian voters head to the polls Tuesday for elections pitting President Rupiah Banda's pro-business policies against opposition leader Michael Sata's fiery nationalism.
The race has been described by analysts as too close to call.
Banda has presided over one of Africa's fastest-growing economies thanks largely to the rising international price of copper, Zambia's main export.
But Sata has sought to turn the incumbent's economic track record against him by arguing that Banda has let foreign investors reap the rewards of the copper boom while ordinary Zambians continue living in poverty.
The election will decide the country's leadership for the next five years, but is unlikely to bring major policy shifts if Sata's Patriotic Front (PF) defeats the ruling Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD), in power for the past 20 years.
Political analyst Phineas Bbaala of the University of Zambia predicted the race will be tight, with the winner claiming less than 50 percent of the overall vote.
"Most of the voters around the country are in a deep state of psychological discontent, and as a result, we're likely to see an opposition which will poll more votes than the ruling party," Bbaala told AFP.
"But because the opposition vote will be fragmented, it is most likely that the MMD will win."
He said the PF's chances diminished when its alliance with the minority United Party for National Development (UPND) collapsed in March amid a leadership squabble.
A PF win would only be the second transfer of power in Zambia since the country gained independence from Britain in 1964.
The PF says if elected it will bring back a 25 percent windfall tax on mining revenues that Banda's government abolished in 2009.
The increase in copper prices since then -- from around $3,000 a tonne to almost $10,000 -- and the friendly tax regime have drawn a rush of foreign and especially Chinese investment to Zambia.
Thanks largely to the mining boom, Banda has presided over an economy that grew 7.6 percent last year and 6.4 percent the year before.
But the PF says Banda has failed to spread the wealth, with 64 percent of Zambia's 12.9 million people still living on less than two dollars a day.
Sata has also attacked his rival's record on corruption, after Banda's government refused to appeal the corruption acquittal of former president Frederick Chiluba, accused of embezzling $500,000 during his 1991 to 2002 presidency.
Sata, whose biting rhetoric has earned him the nickname "King Cobra", faces image problems of his own in his fourth presidential bid.
Critics fear the strong-fisted firebrand, who made his name bashing the growing Chinese presence in the country, would make an authoritarian president.
The last contest between the two rivals -- a 2008 special election to fill the remainder of late president Levy Mwanawasa's term after his death -- was decided by just two percentage points.
Sata alleged the election was rigged, and his supporters rioted for days after.
Voting stations open at 0400GMT and close at 1600GMT, according to the electoral commission.
STATEMENT BY AMB. JUMA V. MWAPACHU, SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY AND CHAIRPERSON OF THE COMESA-EAC-SADC TRIPARTITE TASK FORCE DURING THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF THE CHIRUNDU ONE STOP BORDER POST, 5TH DECEMBER 2009, CHIRUNDU, ZAMBIA-ZIMBABWE BORDER
Your Excellency, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe,
Your Excellency, Rupiah Bwezani Banda, President of Zambia,
Honourable Ministers,
Your Excellencies Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Heads of International and Regional Organizations,
Distinguished Representatives of DFID and JICA,
My colleagues, Sindiso Ngwenya and Dr. Tomaz Augusto Salomao, the CEOs of COMESA and SADC,
Invited Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am honoured and profoundly privileged as Chair of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Task Force of Chief Executive officers to thank your Excellencies, our dear Heads of State, for your distinguished presence at this event of historic importance to our region and to Africa.
Your Excellencies,
This event marking the official Launch of the Chirundu One Stop Border Post, the first of its kind in Africa, is a lucid demonstration of the new dynamic in regional integration; a dynamic whose underlying ethos is the forward movement towards the realization of the African Economic Community.
Your Excellencies,
Our region, sparked by the vision and resolve of our political leaders in COMESA, SADC and the East African Community, is path breaking in collapsing the artificial national borders created by colonialism and taking revolutionary strides towards unleashing a new economic integration momentum. A higher growth and sustainable trajectory and indeed the economic liberation of the people of our regional crucially hinges on this dynamic political leadership and on the measures being unfolded of which this One Stop Border Post is only a small manifestation. The bigger resolve is what our leaders decided in October last year in Kampala, Uganda that COMESA-EAC and SADC proceed expeditiously to establish a Grand Free Trade Area followed by a Customs Union. Much headway has been realized on this front. Indeed as we meet here, all the Member States of our three Regional Communities are now reviewing concrete proposals which our Task Force led by the three CEOs have developed and tabled. Our plan is that our political leaders should by May next year pronounce themselves on the establishment of the Grand Free Trade Area.
Your Excellencies,
Within the framework of the Tripartite arrangements, there have been resolute efforts taken, even prior to the establishment of the Grand FTA, to address our region’s transport and logistics deficits. This is in the realization that supply side constraints distort our region’s costs of doing business and undermine our economic competitiveness. It is this realization that gave birth to the North-South Corridor Development Project within which the Chirundu One Stop Border Post is an inherent part. In April this year at Lusaka, the Tripartite Leadership supported by a number of close Development Partners, notably DFID, JICA, EU, World Bank, African Development Bank and Development Bank of Southern Africa, the North-South Corridor Project was able to attract USD1.2 billion in funding pledges. DBSA is raising an additional USD1.5 billion for the project.
Your Excellencies,
Years of cross-border trade experience around the world and not just in Africa have shown that the costs of doing business are invariably distorted where the efficiency of supply chains, both in exports and imports, is thwarted by poor facilitation at border points. A recent study report of the World Bank points out that in fact only 25% of the supply chain high costs are attributable to poor physical infrastructure. 75% of the cost distortion is contributed by what are described as soft infrastructure deficits. These are principally people-driven and related to cumbersome customs procedures, bureaucratic behavior and corruption. It is these trade facilitation deficits that the One Stop Border Posts seek to address. And this Chirundu One-Stop Border Post is in this vein a milestone project. A model whose success will constitute a huge case for replication around our COMESA-EAC-SADC region and Africa generally. We have every confidence that this Chirundu Project will significantly reduce supply chain transaction costs, spur higher trade flows and boost the competitiveness of our industries and agriculture.
Let me offer a real example. Currently, it takes 2-3 days for a haulage truck to cross the Chirundu Border point. If you consider that Chirundu handles an average of 268 trucks per day, this translates to a traffic volume of 96,840 trucks per annum, as a minimum. From our calculation, it costs each truck USD140 per day in fixed costs and Drivers’ time. Thus for 3 days, the cost per truck is US$420. This cost is saved by use of the Chirundu One Stop Border Posts because it is now estimated that each truck should not take more than 2 hours to cross and only 15 minutes for fast track pre-cleared traffic. In our estimation, the potential cost saving per annum is about USD486 million which accrues to our economies and leverages competitiveness.
Your Excellencies,
The advantages realized from the One Stop Border Post are not merely economic. They are also social and importantly so. Public health research in our broad region shows that there is close association between high incidences of HIV/AIDs transmission and delays in border crossings of haulage trucks. Chirundu and other planned One Stop Border Posts will contribute to a significant reduction in HIV/AIDs vulnerability in this important regional economic sector.
Your Excellencies,
Allow me to conclude by thanking DFID and JICA for their financial and technical support to this Chirundu Project. DFID and JICA are working closely with the Tripartite to develop other Transport Corridors in the COMESA-EAC-SADC region notably the Northern Corridor in Kenya and the Central Corridor in Tanzania. These corridors will further open up the economic spaces embracing Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern DRC.
Your Excellencies,
The Governments of Zimbabwe and Zambia have made a huge contribution to this Chirundu Project. The presence of Presidents Mugabe and Banda here today attests to their valued support of this One Stop Border Post Project. We hail this support and salute our comrade Presidents for their solidarity. Finally, special gratitude to Mr. Kingsley Chanda, the Manager and Coordinator of this One Stop Border Post Project. He has done a commendable job.
Your Excellencies,
Friends,
On behalf of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Task Force, I have great honour to invite their Excellencies, President Robert Mugabe and President Rupiah Banda to address us and officially inaugurate the Chirundu One Stop Border Post.
